I am a former employee for the Town of Brookside and its police department. I worked as one of their dispatchers and I can only describe the experience as psychological terror. The employees are treated as bad if not worse than those stopped by the police. I quit after a year for many reasons, namely the corruption and horrid behavior. For over a year I told people the stories and no one believed me or thought I was just a disgruntled ex employee. It’s so nice to see justice on the way after having to sit back and see it go on for so long. Also, if anyone is curious, look up Mike Jones and his past. He is a known embezzler but was hired by Brookside despite this fact. If anyone is wondering where all this money is going then I can tell you - it’s going in his pocket and the mayor’s pocket. Thanks again for shedding light on this.
I for one am glad that you were able to get out of that hell hole. I think that you have been doing a better job than Sysiphus in relating this story. You have been vindicated. Please continue to provide assistance against this injustice. Evil wins when God men do nothing.
Yeah I mean at this point the number of cases like this and worse abuse across the country I assume that cops judges and the rest are basically corrupt by default and we need to see evidence otherwise for exceptions.
@Baba Ganush issue at this point is for too long and far too many have decided that supporting other Police comes before integrity and duty to their community
@@Krzemieniewski1 The police officers and their supporters. It’s been proven that if someone has a vested interest in something they will go and vote for it more than someone who is against something.
Back in 2016, I had been a brick mason for years. My neighbors were the snooty type who would never talk to you about any potential issues, they'd just have the cops talk to you on their behalf. Well, I guess one day they got tired of the pallet of bricks in my backyard because they called the cops on me for "illegally dumping" off my dock. Yeah, me throwing bricks I paid for to do the job that keeps a roof over my head, in the lake. Tooootally. So I lived in a small town in Michigan, only about a square mile wide. Completely no-crime area until this new police chief steps up after the old one retired, suddenly every single kid is a hoodlum, every driver is suspicious, you see where this is going. Police chief himself responds to the call. Doesn't knock or anything, instead he just wanders into my backyard and starts taking pictures of my property without any sort of invitation. I was woken up by my girlfriend at the time that there's cops in our backyard, so I rush downstairs and into the threshold of my backdoor in nothing but my boxers and ask the officer, "Hey, you got a warrant?" His response: "I don't need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation-" blah blah blah. He tried stepping up to me so he could occupy the threshold of the door with me, at which point he would already be inside the house. So before he got to me I took one small step forward and locked us both out of my house. "Oh, you shouldn't have done that." So he puts me in cuffs, says I'm being arrested for interfering with a police investigation and resisting an officer, and that he needs to run my license. I told him that for obvious reasons I didn't have it on me, it's in my pants, so he adds additional charges for failure to identify and failure to possess a valid ID. He proceeds to tell me that he can make do with my vehicle registration, so I tell him that I don't have my keys either and my car is locked, and that I do not consent to my vehicle being forcibly opened and searched. Didn't stop him, he broke into my car and retrieved my registration and POI from the glovebox on his own. Takes me down to the police station IN my boxers, I'm released immediately after being booked, had to sign a bunch of stuff saying I'd appear in court (you bet your ass I was going to court over this, I told them as much). THEN had to have my girlfriend pick me up in my own car while I was forced to wait out front, still in my boxers. The two weeks go by with regular phone calls from this guy telling me that if I just apologize for disrespecting him and his authority, he'll drop all charges and we can go about our lives. No way in hell was I doing that, I told him every single time I had him on camera abusing his authority and violating my rights, and I'd see him in court. On the DAY before, he calls me first thing in the morning and says it's my last chance and he'd *really* like to put this whole thing behind us, probably because I wasn't backing down. I told him: "You know what? Fine. I gotcha. I'm sorry you think I disrespected you and your authority by knowing my rights. I'm sorry you think that my voicing my displeasure at being wrongfully detained and then arrested and driven into public in nothing but my boxers was crossing a line for you. I'm sorry you're getting cold feet about going to court when you were all about levying charges on me in the heat of the moment. I'll see you tomorrow morning." and hung up. We never got to court. Before the end of regular business hours that same day, the front desk lady at the local PD (who was honestly very nice and respectful, and we knew each other outside of her job, being a small town and all) called me in the early afternoon and told me that the department had dropped the charges against me and we wouldn't need to go to court. I was very appreciative of the fact that I didn't have to miss a day of work and thanked her for letting me know, but I wasn't done with him yet, so I asked her for the IA email address, and I get it. I then email a copy of the video my girlfriend had taken the entire time I was being detained, cuffed, arrested, and hauled off. I didn't find out until after she picked me up and she told me about it, because she remembered another incident we had where I told her to record police interactions because they will absolutely lie and they're encouraged to do it. I also asked for and received the email of the Department Commander, since he was the highest up in the department you could go that was still beneath the Chief with any reports, complaints, or grievances. Sent him a copy too. I then went to the official website for the town to get the email for the city council board, sent them a copy. AND for good measure I sent a copy to Channel 7. To make an already long story MUCH shorter, after waiting around a while and living life as normal, I find out that Chief isn't Chief anymore. I finally felt vindicated. I don't know if the video I sent to the news ever got any airplay, I don't watch the news like that, but I'm sure the bad publicity and reporters blowing them up for an investigation combined with it being an official city council topic of discussion on the docket played a role in the amount of pressure the town administration was under played a part. Funnily enough, after a little while, the town went back to normal. Police were sleepy instead of jumpy, they'd actually wave to you instead of follow you around, the local kids stopped getting into trouble for nonsense reasons, people stopped telling me about getting tickets or pulled over for the most victimless of infractions. Moral of the story: ALWAYS stand up to authority, especially when it's being abused. The only thing you do when you lay down and accept your fate is hand the opposition an easy victory.
The Institute for Justice has taken this on in a class action suit They had a first round victory in March 2023. Thank goodness for people in the IJ. They fight the seemingly unfightable. Thanks for getting this story out there!
Exactly! my friend, trekidaho... Yep... when they know that everybody knows that they are AT FAULT or have BROKEN their OWN LAW, they will go into HIDING or SIMPLY RESIGN from their position... Why can't CIVILIANS do the same??? ROTFLMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And the solution is so simple too - all punitive damages imposed by any judge, or any police officer, and all proceeds of any asset forfeitures should by law be entered into the general fund of the federal government. No earmarking, as as non-local as possible, and with not singular identifiable cause which a police officer or judge might want to support. And if that's politically not possible as a law, then any steps in that general direction would help; i.e. perhaps on a state-by-state level. But frankly, states shouldn't be incentivized to fine their own citizen either, so while that's better than nothing, it's not great.
@@MoireFly lol no. The federal government had nothing to do with this. We have this thing called the constitution. The answer isn't centralized power 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@deusvult6920 So your objection to having money be pooled where the incentives for fraud are massively diluted by sheer scale is...? Furthermore, pooling collected fines does not centralize power to _issue_ those fines in any way. And what exactly does having a constitution have to do with the appropriateness of a policy? The constitution is a _means_ to an end, not a item of worship; it has exactly zero relevance to picking ideal policy; it may have relevance to the details of implementability. Which is fine - the point is to separate those that issue fines from the proceeds of those fines. It's not that important exactly where those proceeds end up as long as that's as non-earmarked as possible to avoid kickback schemes. If a state treasury collects em, rather any branch of state or local law enforcement: that's still hell of a lot better than things are now...
We were pulled over by them earlier in the year. The officer walked up to the side of my truck. I didn’t notice that my younger brother had put his badge on the top of my armrest so when he looked in the truck he was able to see it.. The officer had asked me for my license and registration. I asked him what did I do to get pulled over. He got extremely upset and he went to grab my door to open it. He got a little bit more upset when he found it was locked and he was not going to get it open. My brother opened his mouth and told him that under the law he was required to tell me the reason why he stopped us. He was starting to get a lot more upset when he got yelled at and told how to do his job. He started to tell us that we were both going to jail and that’s when he got a badge pushed into his face. I thought he was going to pull out his gun but my brother was already on the phone with the state troopers and they had someone on the way to us. He wasn’t sure when he saw the badge of a dea agent but when he was not able to tell if I was the agent or my brother. When the troopers got there they told us to go ahead and get back out on the highway if we didn’t want to wait for the sheriff to come out and explain why one of his officers was doing radar on the highway out of his jurisdiction. We got the officer’s name from the troopers and the number for the state’s attorney general. I filled out a complaint and my brother is going after the officer who stopped us to make sure that he is never allowed to be a officer anywhere else in the country.
Dash cam. Two words that will save a lot of pain. My son had a 2 week old Charger, which he worked very, very hard to afford. A person in an expensive truck backed into him then claimed my son rear ended him and he had neck injuries. My son had a dash cam with front and back cameras. Guess who won, my son.
We live in an amazing country don’t we, where people are more then happy to lie, steal, and cheat and never feel bad about it. Sounds like most cops now days too, f*&$ing disgusting. Like we are headed back to the BC days
You should have looked up the civil rights lawyer from West Virginia he is great. He sues on civil rights violations and has a detailed RUclips channel
This is the police force that needs to be federally investigated...now. The fact that the State has not stepped in, already. If you live near there, buy a dash camera that shoots in at least 2 directions.
Any officer that gives false testimony where video evidence proves this needs to be held in contempt of court, be referred to for criminal contempt as a charge, and needs to have all of their old cases/testimony reviewed and possibly those old cases re-tried at the police department's expense without the officer's testimony.
This reminds me of Philly cops and how there was so much corruption and extortion and other BS (that still happens) but the “highway patrol” in particular was pretty flippant about it. They rode motorcycles, wore Nazi style jackboots, and operated as more of a racist gang than anything else. I don’t know if it was the state or feds but after numerous scandals they actually got kicked off the major highways and the State Troopers took over. I don’t get why Alabama can’t do something similar.
The Feds? Like the FBI, which is currently beung used by the democrats to investigate and harass their political opponents, but never seem to charge them with any crimes? The DOJ is too busy labeling parents going to school board meetinngs aw shite supremacist domestic terrorists. There is no system of justice in this nation any more, we have a legal system that is as corrupt as any third-world shithole nation run by a dictator.
That’s what I was thinking. Dash cams showing front and back windows and preferably one that automatically uploads to the cloud or somewhere off site. You know they will destroy that camera and any footage stored only inside. Plus the tinier the better so they won’t know you have footage until you get to court. Frankly I’d request a change venue for the court but I doubt they’d do that.
@@SavingSally not surprising at all. Long story but I moved away and came back 10 years later. I got pulled over 3 times within a 30 day span. It was a total of 13 cops and a k-9 unit. I went and talked to the sheriff and threatened to get a lawyer involved... Luckily they left me alone after that.
On a recent trip to Birmingham, I saw several Hoover Police vehicles in the median on I22 near Brookside. They were still there hours later on the return trip. Someone explain that please.
The FBI needs to get involved and investigate this department, the local judge, and everyone associated with them. I expect some charges of deprivation of rights and conspiracy would follow.
This story is extremely similar to something I experienced, and I would like to add an additional layer that wasn't talked about in this video- The courts. After me and a friend got pulled over on motorcycles in a small county (Glauster) off the Atlantic City Expressway, we got tickets for harassment and reckless driving because the cop said "we were messing with a buss". I told the cop (before getting the ticket) that yes we did pass 1 bus miles back but we did nothing wrong. I was 18 at the time, and after telling my family what happened, my grandfather insisted on hiring a lawyer "The best in the county". We get to court and neither the cop or bus driver were there, and the judge, the lawyer, and prosicuter were all best friends. They all met up in the back room for a few minutes and then the lawyer came out and said "I worked out a deal, all you have to do is plea 5 mph over the speed limit". As a nieve kid facing 5 points on my clean license, and who knows what kind of legal action (fines and probation? Driving school? Suspended license?) I happily took the "deal" like a life line. It wasn't until later I had realized how messed up the situation was, and that they all knew that, legally, they had to let me go due to nobody else showing up. I also understood why my grandfather was "not pleased" with the outcome when I learned how much money that scumbag lawyer charged him for 10 minutes of "work" hanging with his buddies, and I still had to pay the hundreds in court fees. I know they had that offer set up well before the court date. It's probably the standard deal they offer when they have nothing but want the fees. It's just wrong in so many ways... If you care to hear it, here's the full story; I had just got my motorcycle permit and took a day trip to the NJ shore with a friend. He had 2 bikes and decided we would go once I was legal (I already knew how to ride, grew up riding off road bikes, and had a car for 3 years). On the way home a bus was driving 5 under the speed limit in the left lane with a car next to it in the right, so we just stayed a bit behind the car (in a proper 2 bike stagger at a safe distance) for about a mile or so, with no other options. The bus driver decided he didn't want to stay in the left lane, after quite a while, and hit his brakes then pullied into the right lane behind the car he was riding next to (exactly where we had been the past 1 or 2 miles). My friend sped up and easily got in front of the bus and into the left lane, but as I waited for him to get clear the bus was already in my lane (the right) braking hard and forcing me over the "rumble strip" inches from the grass. I cleared the rear bumper of the bus just in time to switch to the left lane and pass. I felt like it might have been intentional and was shocked by the close call... About 3 more miles down the road a cop pulls us over and claims we "were messing with a bus". The driver called 911, (my 2 theories are A- he realized he almost ran someone off the road and was preemptively covering his ass, or B- it was a casino tour buss with histarical old people freaked out by the "scary motorcycle gang") I didn't even get a chance to hit the horn let alone make ANY kind of gestures, I just wanted to get far away from a clearly dangerous bus driver. That was it, we were tired and just cruising home minding our business. No goofing around what so ever.
I hired stites law llp to fight my bogus stop sign ticket In the bronx despite having a witness that said the officer told me he was instructed to give the me a ticket but believed I did no crime. Stites refused to provide me any information on my case and I ended up filing a complaint with the bar. This piece of shit tried to pull rep like I don't care who you worked for or how bad you think I am why did you withhold information from me for my case. The answer because he didn't do anything but confirm the officers testimony I could have done that. I left bad reviews on Facebook I was blocked one of my reviews deleted and stites wiped all negative comments on his page while leaving positive ones which is a violation of the consumer review fairness act.
You only made two mistakes in your story, kid. Talking bad about lawyers and old people. I'm an "old people" and Steve is a lawyer. However, I'm not one that gets upset when kids talk about our idiotsyncracies. :)
@@billyback1038 If your talking about me I can say this you boomers destroyed the economy making life harder for us young adults and as far as lawyers are concerned we can do without them.
@@billyback1038 I didn't mean to imply all old people are hysterical, I have deep respect for good people with life experience. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but we've all seen seniors get overly bent out of shape due to misunderstanding the little things that have become normal in the current day- maybe scary motorcycles, 5 kids of various races walking, minor HOA association violations, or someone turning around in a driveway. Misunderstanding different aspects of culture is obviously a human problem in general. I only have those two theories on why the driver would call the cops but I'm open to hearing any others... As far as the lawyer, judge, and prosecutor I still say they're scumbags. They had a racket going and everyone knew it. I'm not saying everyone in those professions are all bad, just them three in particular.
I got pulled over as I pulled into an autozone once, I was pulling into Autozone with a headlight out, it went out while i was driving and I went straight to the parts store, as I was pulling into a parking spot and getting out a police car came up behind me and wrote me a ticket for failure to maintain my car, this was Arlington TX, it happens in the big ones also. I told the officer is was pulling in to get a headlight and was informed that didn't matter and the moment my headlight went out I should have pulled to the side of the road and requested a tow. Like WTH
Between 20 and 26 years ago I was a traffic reporter for a local radio station. I was the only non cop performer, as we just drove around and called different police departments for wrecks, and other things. I started giving away police speed traps live when I saw them! Never a complaint!
It’s also what happens when people ignore their local elections and focus too much on who’s running on the state and federal level…..none of those state and federal politicians have any where near the effect on your life or LE than the local politicians do, and no politician lies and misrepresents their platform or beliefs as those on the local level because the media ignores most of them. Hell most voters don’t even know who the hell their local politicians are, much less what they stand for.
hey my friend... not turned into... it has always been that way since day one all across the United States of America coast to coast. It's just now these things are coming out in the open because of EASY ACCESS to TECHNOLOGIES. Everybody is recording everybody else even themselves.
@iTz Wuzzi *trust me and judges and cops just get bribed* All the time, but they will give the IMPRESSION that they NEVER ARE INFLUENCED by MONEY and that they are UNBIASED and FAIR... Yea Right... ROTFLMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sounds like kidnapping, assault, and falsifying police reports in the case of the grandmother. Might be different in Alabama, but I'm pretty sure police have to be wearing identifying materials if doing traffic enforcement. The whole department should be arrested and charged with racketeering.
@@johnstjohn4705 My thoughts too. Scary stuff. This police dept and mayor think they are being cute, clever, but hopefully the consequences quickly catch up with them when investigated for committing some very serious crimes.
In MI stopping someone from making a 911 (or any other call for that matter) is an additional "illegal wiretap" charge. These cops are unbelievable. They definitely need to be RICO'd.
I once lived had a similar situation. I was shopping in a resort town that more than quadrupled its size during the summer. The town became afraid they'd get visitors like Spring Break in Florida (this was Delaware) and freaked out. That summer there somehow appeared FIVE law enforcement departments in that town. I was driving on the main street of town, having made a purchase in that town. As I pulled up behind a car stopped at one of the town's three traffic lights, on a road that went eight blocks total before leaving town and was NOT A THRU ROAD going anywhere (It turned around at the ocean) I honked to let in two girls hitchhiking after utilizing the town's movie theater. A cop car waiting behind bushes in the median pulled out and I was arrested for "stopping on the highway," and hauled off to county court at midnight. The girls were arrested for trespassing. I tried to fight the charges and established that the cop hadn't noticed I'd stopped behind a stopped car, at a red light the officer didn't notice was there. The cop said "You didn't stop for a stoplight, you, pulled over to pick up the girls (who were not allowed to testify or even be in the courtroom). I said, "If I pulled over, how was I stopped on the highway, and incidentallyhow is a blind-end street a highway?" At this point the cop flustered, got off the witness stand and started towards me swinging his balled fists and the judge allowed it. I caught the drift and changed my plea. The judge looked up the minimum fine and released me (after I got cash by calling my farther). The ticket disappeared without ever being listed on my driver's licence. At the end of the summer, the merchants there petitioned the town in complaint after finding their store revenues severely decreased, as the word got out and people stayed away in droves. The next summer there was only the one local department.
There are plenty of other towns that do this same crap. We need to ban victimless crimes. There needs to be more reasons why a cop can write a ticket other than just because they can.
A cop driving a Dodge charger followed me from Spokane to Ritzville. Then he started aggressively closing the gap between us. I was twenty years old, driving a used car I bought with 2 years of minimum wage paychecks. I assumed the driver was trying to intimidate me for sport. So I maintained the exact correct speed limit. I got in the left lane, he sped up to drive parallel in the right lane. He refused to let me back into the right lane for 8 miles, and I was not willing to break the speed limit to pass him. He pulled me over and gave me an $80 ticket for remaining in the left lane without passing anybody for 8 MILES. My driver's license got yanked for that. The only ticket I ever got. I ended up homeless, living in the car. To this day, I never got my driver's license back. Thank you for raising awareness about this. Policing for profit is a destructive trend in our country.
I agree totally with you Steve. I'm a retired LEO. Gaining reasonable compliance of the law by the public doesn't mean being a ticket writing fool or cops breaking the law. Judge needs to be investigated also. Lawsuits waiting to happen.
This all starts because we take a police officer's testimony as fact. If he says you 'rolled through a stop sign', then you did, period. No need for evidence or anything so inconvenient. "All power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely". With all the video capabilities out there, we need to stop this. Police should need to provide actual evidence: video, radar gun, etc. As in 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Does anyone remember that?
When we have cases like former police officer Zachary Wester planting drugs in people's vehicles I definitely have a hard time with the notion that a cop's testimony should automatically outweigh any other witness's testimony.
@@UncleKennysPlace true, but those are held to preponderance of evidence standards. In a "he said, she said" battle, a civil suit tends not to be winnable.
Had a similar issue with some small towns in Florida. We passed a statewide law that limited the percentage of a town's revenue that could come from traffic tickets. I believe any excess beyond that limit went to the state budget. Suddenly these towns weren't as motivated to write tickets.
All ticket money should go to the state first, then handed out to local departments depending on need…any financial motivation to write a ticket just Leeds to corruption and is counter productive to public safety…this country is going to shit really fast
Waldo's (Fla) PD was disbanded...finally! Waldo along with Hampton FL, was one of the worst Speed Traps in Florida. They finally went too far and the governor had to shut them down...long overdue. Lawtey is still a speed trap of sorts, but as far as I know, doesn't pull the crap that towns like Waldo did...they just STRICTLY enforce the speed limits thru down. But considering the lowest the speed goes is 45mph, it's not hard to obey.
In Florida, Waldo and Starke had this problem and the state eventually had their traffic enforcement power removed because it was so egregious that travel agencies from every state included instructions to avoid them which made traffic worse everywhere. Part of it was that people going to Disney were hit with massive tickets.
I'm Melissa's husband. We are from not to far from brookside. I used to drive thru their with my buddies in front of the mall to get to Homewood skate park and damn do we have some shit stories. They are absolutely brutal. It was awful driving thru their but because of where we were coming from, it would effectively cook less our drive time to take another route. Its worse than Vincent when it comes to traffic violations. Which, around here, that's really saying something. 36 in a 35 = ticket. Seatbelt sitting underneath your ladies chest (you know what I mean) that's at least an attempted ticket. Newborn in the car and you need to reach back to help them, ticket. A buddy of mine actually got a ticket for not having his lights on when raining. Problem is, it wasn't raining amd haven't been for over an hour. The cop actually tried to justify it by saying the roads were still wet. Never even heard of that before. I didn't even know people actually got tickets over their lights even if it was raining. There's a lot more and frankly what I did say ain't even bad. Some of the residemts there are literally blackmailed and extorted by the cops. They cops would know when their payday was, pull them over, and take their cash under threat of a bogus arrest and getting their car towed. They are insane. Many times, the county sheriff and deputies had to go and literally rescue citizens from brooksides police.
A small town near me (Porter , Oklahoma pop. 700) had a similar problem. Not much traffic through there, so the police were getting the locals for 1 mph over and a lot of other ridiculous tickets. They had a system where you could pay the fine to the officer right then with a credit card. ---The town voted to do away with the police department. End of problem.
they screwed up by ticketing locals it sounds like. you let the locals off scot free and ticket others while spending money on the town is how you succeed apparently
I'm from Brookside, In the year before this story, they pulled me over probably 20 times. Most times most times they let me go, once they gave me 2 tickets for wreckers driving and failure to yield for emergency vehicle. They are the only department to pull me over in the last 10 years. We are now down to 2 cops and a supervisor.
The feds have filed a statement of interest in a civil suit brought against the Brookside Criminal Conspiracy Department, but they haven't, as far as I know, put boots on the ground to start a criminal investigation. They should. If you're going to get a federal RICO case out of any small town, Brookside is the one. This is a town that should be shut down, top to bottom. The Mayor, city council, prosecutors, every cop in the Department and clerks should all be under a full criminal investigation.
The police went from 50 tows to 789 tows in 2020 - when most people were quarantined at home and only essential workers went to and from work. Oh, and an occasional run to get food and supplies. The year that America was locked down, the police tow rate went up 1560%!!!!
But the cops will say aren't we doing a good job. oh ya they are doing a good job robbing people of there hard worked for paychecks. this town seems to do anything to justify the myth they are serving and protecting its the who they are protecting that is in question. it sure as hell isn't people who travel near their jerk water town. .gotta beware of the good ole boy system and its hangin" judges too. you will never get justice anywhere near that town.
I'm from Alabama and I've never heard of brookside. It makes me mad that things like this still happen in small towns. They know people will probably just pay the fines instead of fighting them. I think they need to be investigated by the FBI. All small towns that make money from speed traps should be investigated.
The way things are the FBI is probably either complicit or behind the activity and takes a cut just like Old Joe. We're in a very sad place as a nation and humanity in general.
Same thing happened to me. Cop said I had run a stop sign and I really had stopped. He pulled me over 4 blocks and two more stop signs past the intersection. There was no way he could have even seen me at the time I went through that intersection. He intensely interrogated me on where I was headed, where I was coming from, why I was in the neighborhood,, etc. It would have cost me much more in lost wages to fight it than to just pay. There are deceptive and abusive police officers everywhere. Standards to get that job need to be increased.
Steve, when you said “Here’s where it gets really crazy”….i was already exploding,10 times over. I can’t even believe this is a real situation! Every one of those scoundrels should be incarcerated and prevented from ever holding a job in enforcement for life.
The Mayor, Judge, and every cop in that town should be arrested for violating the public's constitutional rights. They should do long sentences. This cannot stand in America!!!
I grew up in a small town in Washington and in my teen years we had a LOT of problems with the local police. Yes my friends an I were on the rowdy side but we weren't criminals by any means. My parents were friends with the Chief of police and apparently that made me a target, as most of the police on staff hated him. Turns out most of the staff were officers from other areas who had been fired for various levels of illegal acts, as often happened back then and they disliked the chief because he was a by the book guy. Long story short, throughout my teen years I somehow accrued 66 arrests. Never once was I put in handcuffs, nor charged with a crime. I only found out about the arrest record when I applied for a job with high security clearance. But there is nothing I can do about all the fake reports they filed. They had me listed as a person of interest in a stolen car case, that happened 9 months after I and my family moved to Arizona. It's amazing these "police" officers didn't get arrested themselves. I didn't know any better, I was just a kid in a sleepy town and thought almost daily police harassment was normal.
I've been saying for a couple of years now that there need to be a entity to investigate the police misconduct that is not attached to the police in any way and have the ability to arrest just police in any wrongdoings. The police are too easily corrupted when they know they are going to be protected internally
Who’s going to govern it? We have the Legislative, executive and judicial branch but they all conspire to promote each other’s perversion. The Supreme Court drops the ball more often than not. We don’t need to police the cops. We need less cops because the ones we have generally suck.
@@RadDadisRad we absolutely have to police the cops or else we have effectively zero rights and we dont live in a nation anymore we just live under the thumb of feudal lords known as sheriffs
Complain on the judge instead. He's letting it happen. The Judicial Inquiry Commission, created under the provisions of the Alabama Constitution, is charged with investigating complaints of misconduct or professional wrongdoing on the part of judges.
Absolutely correct Geoff. The majority of the LEOs in the state of CT are CORRUPT to the bone. Being in a Blue state, they know that they are protected from the Governor and AG on down to their own Chief. It is time to GET RID OF THEM and replace them with people who have morals and ethics and truly do "Protect & Serve".
Exactly what we dealt with in Stringtown, Colcord, Big Cabin, and a few others here in Oklahoma. It got so bad the the FBI and DOJ got involved back in the mid 00’s and a judge, a police chief (Stringtown), as well as several officers and deputies were convicted of multiple crimes and were jailed. Stringtown was back it it in no time until the Oklahoma department of public safety completely removed their right to patrol any federal or state highways in their jurisdiction in 2019. Kiowa county officers and deputies have also lost their right to enforce traffic rules on any state or federal highways. Lots of scams out there, none worse than those perpetrated by government officials.
Yep...don't forget Kiowa and Savanna Oklahoma (north of Stringtown) bad enough for locals but killers for Texas and other out-of-state plates...it's a cash cow that just keeps on giving....//
@@garymackey850 There is several towns in Texas that are horrible. One I can't remember the name is on US 287 up near the Panhandle and several on US 59. I got stopped about 5 years ago in Tenaha Texas. Then there is Corrigan, Texas. In my situation in Tenaha I got so pissed off I came close to taking a swing at that idiot that stopped me. The thing that bothered me the most was the cop was more interested in how much cash I had on me. Mind you I was just stopped for doing 10 over. I finally told the cop all I had was plastic and maybe $40 in cash. During that time I was working on two different contracts and had to drive between Shreveport Lousianna and Lufkin Texas several times. After that day I went around Tehaha. I never have been back through there since I paid my fine.
What the video does not talk about is the misdemeanor charges, and FELONY charges..They are illegal DRUG charges!!!! Small town infested with DRUGS and CRIME, that has been OVERLOOKED for decades. They also patrol 1.5 miles of I-22 because Jefferson County only has ONE officer to cover about a 40 square miles are, that includes I-22. The State and County RARELY patrol I-22, which is a PIPELINE for illegal drug and human trafficking from Atlanta to the Memphis area, and further northwest. Brookside Police STOP illegal drugs from heading to a town near you, by enforcing the law on I-22 and in their small town. The people who say they didn’t commit a crime, are flat out liars. Most of these big dollars are also from Brookside PD performing felony arrest warrants. These are some of the bravest police officers out there, doing their job for pennies. They could easily sit and eat donuts all day, but they are highly trained, unlike the surrounding towns, and should be appreciated and thanked for cleaning up the small town and stopping the illegal drugs from coming to a town near you.
This is by definition extorsion. I hope the little old lady wins her case. Hopefully this will bankrupt the town. This is clearly not legal. The entire police force and mayor need jail time.
Wow..... that is exactly what my sister told me about the cop at the corner as she reached the stop sign. She saw him, he saw her. She made sure to stop, but still he claim she ran the stop sign. This is odessa texas.
I, being a commercial driver of vehicles that can have a 2 ton overload legally, have been put through the wringer. I've been stopped for a trailer the DOT occifer didn't think was level. I was run over from behind by a sand frac truck as I was just getting into my truck. He was exceeding the speed limit, ignoring signs to slow down including strips on the pavement to gain his attention. Just as I sat down after checking my rig, I saw a KW fly by me(in the air). He had driven up on my drop deck trailer that had loading ramps that led to about 18 inches off the ground. Just as I was about to reach for my lemon water and put on my seat belt, I saw his tractor at least 5 feet off the ground fly by my right side(off the road) and then his trailer axles hit the back of my loaded tractor, loaded with concrete made underground pieces made to form a waterway getting off the main hiway. I was knocked into the windshield by the back of the daycab tractor I was driving, never having time to get my seat belt on, and slammed into the windshield of my tractor. The driver of the other rig ended up stopped 3//8th of a mile, up against a fence with ruined trailer axles and my trailer was also badly damaged. If he had waited another second to swerve his tractor off my load, I wouldn't be writing this. The impact knock my head so hard my sight was impaired. I had neck injuries and waited for an ambulance since I didn't feel confident to driver further. The DPS(Texas), arrived right after I was loaded on to the ambulance that rode like a bucking bronc and asked me if I had my seat belt on. Obviously, right after shutting the door and being hit, I had no time to belt up. I was issued a ticket for no seat belt, never getting a chance to say why I was not belted. I was in the back of a quarter mile line of stopped traffic and had stopped at least 40 feet from the one ton welding rig and several more since I knew the hill was sharp and anyone that ignored the signs(flashing lights, strips across the road and so on with signs saying stop ahead). The DPS asked me if I had on a seat belt. I replied "No, I had no time to belt up and wouldn't have anyway since seat belts are the worst thing to happen to big rigs since 3 piece wheels." He issued me a ticket I was unable to sign being strapped down on the godawful thing they put in ambulances for you to be tied down. He wrote me a ticket. I have no idea of what was done to the idiot that ran up on my load and barely missed killing me. There is nothing worse than an idiot with a badge who shows up to make life more miserable. My company lawyer got the ticket dropped but tonight, I'll barely go to sleep for 4 or 5 hours and my neck will be killing me. I'm 72 now and began driving a truck when I was 14 with no "at fault" wrecks or tickets during that 3 million miles lifetime of driving just about everything you can think of. Law dogs are a truckers nightmare. They exist only to take your money. I have met few DOT occifers that had any type of understanding of driving a big rig. The state makes laws that are only for producing revenue. That was 6 years ago and I wake every night with my neck killing me. I am Soooo grateful to that DPS occifer since he simply made my life more hell that needed.
This was my exact thought, totally unmarked people trying to make you exit your vehicle. Someday one will get shot, And if it does happen I hope that driver has good dash cam coverage front and rear in HD at a minimum. That way when they inevitably end up in court they can show on video that person was not in any way displaying proof of being a law officer. Some places in the US have in fact made it illegal for unmarked vehicles and plain cloths officers to conduct traffic stops. Mostly for officer safety.
Law enforcement in general is out of control!! There's a lack of accountability and consequences for their misconduct! GET A DASH CAM AND ALWAYS RECORD THE POLICE!!! THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND, AND THEY'RE NOT HERE FOR YOU!
@@kkal1183 End qualified immunity and staff Internal Affairs with citizens who have no ties with law enforcement. This, law enforcement policing law enforcement isn't working
In Missouri, the town was named "Macks Creek". The city of 270 derived 75% of its entire operating budget from speeding tickets on the state hwy which passed through their city limits. It was notorious because it was on a main feeder highway into the Capitol. The city actually was known nationally for being a speed trap. (Google it). There was no warning and zero tolerance. Finally, they ticketed a state representative going to work who decided "enough is enough". He got a bill passed which limited any city from getting more than 45% of their budget from tickets. It was then amended down to 30% with a provision that violations would lead to loss of municipal court authority for the offenders. Macks Creek had to declare bankruptcy and the citizens voted to disincorporate. A happy ending.
There are many towns like that. A friend of mine I played racquetball with drove through the speed trap of a little town near where I lived. He got stopped and written up for speeding (he wasn't), following too close (although there were no cars in front of him), no license (even though he handed his license to the local) and no insurance (same, handed the proof). He planned to contest it until he found out that you had to put up $100 per charge to do that. Wisely, as a black man in a very rural county in the 1990s, he knew his odds of winning were slim so he just paid the fines and let it go. And never drove that road again. That small town put all their popular western wear stores out of business by writing tickets to everyone who drove through there that wasn't a local.
The purpose of a citation(ticket) is to promote public safety. Ive worked in small towns for half my career. Where i work now the chief and mayor both have been ethical and neither have told me to write tickets. The last place i worked the mayor demanded we write tickets cause "the city needs money", told the chief to fire any officer that didnt write them. This mayor even told me personally [to write] the city needed money. I write approx 1 in 15 ppl i stop which may be couple a month. Our judge helps ppl by reducing fines and even dismissing some. Fyi, i prefer public relations. We work for the people. Our job is to protect people, property and keep the peace.
Thank you Joel for being a true police officer with character. Sadly officers and departments like this put good officers like you in jeopardy. People abused by the system become desperate and unpredictable. Be safe out there and thank you for your honorable service to your fellow human beings.
I got a ticket for passing a line of slow cars going 50mph, I passed all of them going 80mph, merged back and got back to 65mph, but the officer still saw me and decided to pull me for going 80mph, for literally improving the flow of traffic... I just said fúck it and paid off the ticket
This happens all over the country all of the time. Buy a good dash cam (forward and rear) that logs gps data and use it religiously. Exercise your rights to not incriminate yourself by not answering questions and to be free from warrantless searches. And ALWAYS record police encounters.
Nice idea but the judge doesn't have to accept your video evidence. Videos can be faked, you know (according to a Dekalb County (Georgia) judge anyway).
Under "normal" conditions I would agree with you and the suggested measures... but these are extreme and blatant .. So normal measures won't be adequate ..Just choose to not be a victim by refusing to make yourself available to play their game.. Drive around the community.. its cheaper than a ticket
It's sad but this is pretty tame compared to the corruption and criminality in my small town in Montana! It's really like the wild west before law and order was introduced!! The problem is there is no oversight, as our population numbers are so low, the culprits get away with their crimes because they are all in on it! Yes the cops, the judges, the news paper, anyone connected in the community is milking the system for all they can!!! We are entering a period of lawlessness in America which is destroying our civilization! I am still amazed that Trump doesn't realize the president's main job is the enforcement of the rule of law!!!!
For anyone who is watching this video in late 2022 and is disgusted and frustrated there is a sweet sweet revenge story full of irony after all this. Mike Jones, the police chief during all of this ticketing for profit, resigned as chief of police a few months after these allegations were made public and viral. A few months after that, he was pulled over in another town for doing 77mph in a 55 zone, but he got away without a ticket because he presented the sheriff's deputy with his badge from when he was chief of police in Brookside. While this may make you more disgusted and frustrated to learn, you'll be happy to know that when the sheriff's office found out that Jones had resigned as chief of police, they decided to send someone to his home with a warrant for his arrest for impersonating an officer, as that was not a valid police badge, and he has been indicted by a grand jury for both impersonating an officer and speeding, punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a class C felony. And this is completely unrelated to the fact that just a few weeks ago judge recently ruled that officers from this town that are being sued will not be protected by qualified immunity from a class action lawsuit against their money driven ticket policy. We may actually see some justice served here
The police chief resigned.. and then got ticketed for speeding. He tried to use his badge to get out of the ticket, and has now been indicted for impersonating a police officer.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny, when the government fears the people, there is liberty.-Thomas Jefferson. I envy those who think these sort of things are isolated to small towns, but since misery loves company, I am hear to tell you that this rot has infected the whole country.
FACT!!! It is coast to coast... It is just that they haven't brought up in the open yet. I like how some people reason... *Well, if the news media is not talking about this, then this doesn't happen everywhere....* Yep... And look how these people were in COMPLETE shock when Jeffery Epstein shenanigans came out... *No way, politicians and/or gobermint officials would participate in this llegal activities...* Ummmm ... right... lol... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
We used to have that problem in Oklahoma, then the state legislature passed a law where no more than 20% of a city’s income can be from tickets and fines, and 4 mph or less over the speed limit you can only get a warning. Those speed trap towns have shriveled up significantly!
@LeMarkD Yes, that is a good solution to stop this kind of behavior. Thanks! Sounds like even the county that Brookside was in was corrupt too. At this point the State has power to go in there and clean it up.
I feel that the ticketing authority should not get any revenue from ticketing (aside for court costs) as it is a perverse incentive, as seen in this story.
@@jamesonmiller8283 the way the state wrote the law was that they estimated how much income the small towns with major highways passing through their main streets might need to provide decent law enforcement based on average crime levels and officers per capita, then told them if they want more funds to police more then they need to increase taxes on locals. If it was really a problem locals would be ok paying more tax to have more policing, if it wasn’t really necessary then the people would push back against tax increases.
In Aug 2022, a small town (pop. 274) in Arkansas called Menifee was audited by the state and found to have at least 50% of the city's revenue come from tickets. Arkansas has a law stating that no more than 30% of a city's revenue can come from tickets. So now they have been banned from writing tickets for 1 year. A news station looked at their records for an approx 4.5 year period. One officer had written 771 tickets in that period while the next highest was 263 and ZERO warnings had been issued. I'd love to know how these guys have been filling their time for the past 6 months or so.
NM has a state law ⚖ saying NO plain clothes or unmarked vehicles, SUVs can do traffic enforcement. No nonsense traffic tickets. Only police Lts or above can approve a traffic stop in plain clothes. Unmarked 🚔.
This stuff needs exposure, thanks a million Steve! I was arrested on hearsay from an out of state individual and the officer charged me with assault on an officer and dropped me off at jail for processing even though I was calm, cooperative and everything with him and had done nothing or damaged nothing. It was a huge ridiculous ordeal in my life and turned me into an outspoken individual!
The information in this video was great. Thank you for sharing. I'm from Oklahoma City and we have a similar problem here in a little town called Valley Brook. The police and the judge are just as bad if not worse. Only it's been going on here for 20 to 30 years that I know about. Maybe you could come up with a story about that place. Thanks again.
If I were involved in the investigation into this I'd take a good hard look at the circumstances of the previous mayors death a year ago. Kind of odd that the mayor passed away, then 5 minutes after his replacement and the replacements henchmen got installed things go off the rails. Sounds almost like the old mayor got "removed" for standing in the way of an extortion racket.
Public officials should be required to prove that they aren't corrupt at threat of death. The PEOPLE of the United States are innocent until proven guilty; our elected representatives are not.
Please keep up the good work. This sort of thing needs exposure. And when government that is supposed to be protecting us, I guess this type of exposure, it helps the people. Please keep this up and if you do I will keep watching and forwarding your videos
For a town that small, someone should hide several cameras in the high traffic areas. That way there will be evidence of their corruption. The Chief, Officers, and Judge need to be behind bars.
If I were wealthy I would drive through, get my ticket, and make it my life's work to destroy that town's government...completely bankrupt it and destroy the reputations of all involved...create a private foundation dedicated to doing this to corrupt towns like this..
@@hakimcameldriver Those stocks they had on the town common centuries ago. Where criminals had their head and hands locked into it. We need to bring those back... pronto.
Absolutely! I have never been arrested or even detained and I obey the law, but my biggest concern is not being a victim of a crime by a common criminal, it’s being exploited, taken advantage of and or robbed by the police.
I was in Charleston SC on the bridge, (I lived in Charleston at the time and was familiar with the speed limits, etc) and an old red truck swerved around me speeding fast and beeped at me, I was going literally exactly the speed limit (actually was this time) and right when I could say to myself "woah, what was that for?!" An unmarked car got behind me and put his lights on. I was like "what is happening right now?!" I put my turn signal on, slowed down as much as was safe and waited til the pulloff at the Mt Pleasant side of the bridge so as to not stop traffic and put him in danger, which apparently was fine, but He said I was speeding but didnt know how fast. He was wearing a purple shiny suit with white alligator shoes and sunglasses. And a badge around his neck. Like a caricature of one of those preachers. Wrote me a ticket for careless operation (for unknown speeding), no points, $225. Was super aggressive and rude and wouldnt explain anything to me. I went to court and pled not guilty. I said "Not Guilty" and the judge literally said in response "you callin my officer a liar?" Verbatim exchange. I was shocked. Literally implied I was calling "his" officer a liar in court simply from me saying the words "Not Guilty". I saw where that was going. They just steamrolled/bullied me with their minds already made up and I had to pay $225 for I have no idea what, to this day. Remember folks...the cops are "their" cops. Thats the day I learned they're all on the same team and get paid by the same city. Still remember that judge's name, but dont want a frikken Fatwa on my head by Charleston PD. Who, you'd think would have better stuff to do.
Similar situation many years ago--mid-80s I think--in Coburg, Oregon. City limits included a small section of Interstate 5, and Coburg Police began ticketing people for speeding in that section. Newspaper article said ticket proceeds were being used to buy (going from memory here) new "Beretta and Heckler & Koch firearms" and "gleaming new BMW and Harley-Davidson motorcycles." Coburg was and probably is a very small town just north of Eugene, Oregon.
Back in the 1970s there was a crooked police operation in Southaven, Mississippi. At the time, the legal drinking age was 18. There was a Navy training center and base in Millington, TN and the drinking age there and in Memphis, TN was still 21. These guys would target mainly servicemen by stalking in the parking lots of bars and pulling over vehicles with out of state plates. The problem was so bad the Navy had to put these establishments "off limits" for the service members on liberty. The officers there were paid by how many arrests they made. Conflict of interest, I think.
I was there in 1980 and it was pretty much the same they would actually grab you and steal your money beat the crap out of you and run off and this was the police
It never ends when it comes to citizens and police, does it? Here, in upstate NY (about 2 1/2 miles North of NY City), the local cops were asked, on multiple occasions, by the mayor, the city council, and some citizen's groups) to stand outside or sit in their cars near the free parking lot downtown, where the bars and restaurants tend to be. Every single time I'm aware that this has been contemplated - as far as I know, it's never been implemented - it's a tourist town, and the bar and restaurant owner's association has had more than enough clout to prevent the implementation of any such "program". Steve, I respectfully disagree with you regarding giving police (more) discretion than they have already. Any officer that writes a ticket for something that isn't a crime, and attests to having witnessed the commission under perjury, should be charged with perjury. Moreover, if, when writing and signing said ticket or attestation, the penalty they're assessed should be enhanced by the fact they were in possession of a deadly weapon; being "on duty" should be prima fascia evidence of being "on duty".
I believe the legal drinking age (off base) was 18 for beer, 21 for hard liquor. At least that was what it was when I was stationed in Biloxi back in 1972.
I grew up in this very town. They have spent years harassing my brother and now have him doing thousands of dollars in tree work to "pay down his fines". But he still seems to have to be doing multiple days of work without it being paid off. That town is a joke! And 55 reported crimes because they're not reporting it or they're involved in it. I stay out of that town as much as I can because of their harassment.
I do engineering consulting and personally have never been in this part of Alabama. However, someone I know worked a contract in that town a while back. He was born in Northern Alabama and has family in that town. Last I heard he had either already filed a lawsuit or was about to. Several of the cops there were harassing him, he has it all on video.
As someone growing up in Germany and only moving back to the US when I was 26, I was baffled by the amount of small town police stations and stuff. I find it ridiculous that police is not basically county wide (larger cities might have their own separate stations because of high population) and that funding is not done by the state or federal government. Money from tickets should go back in the overall pool with taxes either for the state or federal government and not determine funding of the police station writing the ticket and also not be used for the town/city.
Steve, look up what happened in Fruithurst, Alabama some 48-50 years ago. It was a little town off US-78/I-20 in east Alabama close to GA. It, too, was a ticket mill, and after too many complaints, was busted by the Alabama state patrol in an undercover operation. The city charter was subsequently dissolved. I doubt that all of the past charges were nullified, much less refunded as ticket revenues constituted a massive part of the city's budget.
I was once stopped at 2 AM on my way to a concrete placement at work. The stop was for accelerating prior to completely passing beyond an increased speed limit sign. I was told to exit my vehicle and asked if I had a weapon on me. Specifically a gun or knife. Because I had a folding knife on my belt and a smaller pocket knife in my pocket the small town police officer called for back up from the county. After all who needs a strong working knife AND a smaller razor sharp knife? I was then subjected to what they called a felony arrest. This involved having a shot gun barrel pressed against the back of my head on my knees and handcuffed behind the back, while they ransacked my truck. Somehow they managed to find "less than a tenth of a gram" of an unspecified controlled substance. I was taken to the county jail where the jailers (with me sitting there) openly discussed how the officers didn't know how to write up charges. They proceeded to amend my charges, including intent to distribute the less than a tenth of a gram of unspecified controlled substance, that was by the way, stated to be destroyed during field testing. This ran my bail up so high that I had to wait out the 21 days to be taken to court, where somehow 90% of the charges had disappeared. I elected to not mention the discrepancy . I was told by the court appointed lawyer that I could be released that day if I would plead guilty or go back to the jail and await a hearing to set a court date. I kind of surprised them by pleading no contest but the judge accepted it and gifted me with time served, a fine and 12 months supervised (and costly) probation. Yeah, it's a railroad and once on that train it's very hard to get off. Easy to get on though. It could happen to anyone.
I guess Alabama isn't really worried about tourism. This is very important to know. One drive through the wrong town can destroy or even end your life.
I grew up in a small town with out of control police. When my brother bought his 1st car, he left school to find his tire was flat. While putting air in the tire and trying to figure out what happened a resident told us a police officer flattened the tire. This same cop later wrote my brother a ticket while we were leaving. The ticket was written for not having a state inspection sticker in the window. My brother fought the ticket and won because the car had just been purchased and was still on temp tags and had until the tags expired to get the inspection. The local magistrate was outraged with these officers after hearing all the facts from my brother and I. We were lucky because we worked for the magistrate doing logging and farm work and he knew we were honest kids. He chewed out the officer for flattening the tire and dropped all charges.
In our yuppie suburb area the police wanted at will warrantless searches for teens. They made pre-consenting to searches a condition of parking in the school parking lot, then put up no parking signs for an entire mile(!) around the highschool. And then gave all of us teens in class parking tickets. Because of course they did. Later they'd call students down to have their car searched 'because drug dogs alerted' who hadn't driven that day. Basically if you were one of the poors (didn't dress preppy, or didn't drive a late model car) you were searched.
Again another example of revenue generation. Not having a state inspection sticker has absolutely nothing to do with public safety whatsoever. It proves once again it's all about the money.
Yes, I agree it's not just the south or Alabama. And I saw the comment about Missouri. I am a resident of Missouri and I was being questioned by a city cop and I was calm and nonaggressive answering all his questions and he moved around behind me and did a bulldozer like maneuver into the small of my back and I was violently hit and pushed at a quick pace until I ended up on the hood of his cop car. He then stood up and started yelling, "Did you guys see that?", "Did you guys see that?", talking to the other officers that had just arrived on the scene. He then stated, "this guy was resisting arrest". The other two officers replied with "no". He charged me with resisting arrest, which was later dropped in court. He was a punk and if the situation were different, I would easily schooled him on his crooked ways.
This is common in small towns, everywhere. Here's how it goes. Council spends all the money, needs more money, realizes raising taxes too much (because they're still going to raise taxes...can't miss an opportunity to get all the money) could hurt their re-election chances. Council looks into ways to make money. (Insert fly-by-night traffic camera companies here.) Council, through public safety director, tells appointed Police Chief to write more tickets, because tickets = $, and who is going to stick up for "unsafe drivers"? Police chief of course opts to continue feeding, clothing, and sheltering their family and sends the order down the chain to the sergeants, who are tasked with discreetly telling patrol to write more tickets without telling patrol to write more tickets. Strange things happen to departmental opportunities, such as K9 school, SWAT school, detective school, the assignment to which are now more dependent on "satisfactory traffic enforcement" (wrote enough tickets) appearing on the officer's quarterly eval than ever before. Mind you, no one mentions the dreaded Q word, because 'quotas don't exist and have never existed, and even if they did they would have been bad, evil quotas, so even though we're telling you your job will be made less fulfilling, if not outright more miserable, if you don't write enough tickets, it totally doesn't amount to a de facto quota. Trust us. We wouldn't do that.' And so, in small town America, the quota that isn't a quota continues under some other name, like "satisfactory traffic enforcement," at the expense of mostly out-of-town motorists, except for the part where the residents' homes, cars, and outbuildings are routinely burglarized because patrol was up on the main drag writing inspection sticker tickets, and all's well that ends with the council having more money to play with, without having to explain it at the polls.
Yup. There's a thousand little towns like this all over the US. Sleepy little towns with Boss Hogg police forces that are out to fleece everyone who lives or drives near the place.
It seems that some small towns have WAY more police on the pay roll than other nearby towns. The locals figure it out but tourists and travelers pay the price.
Back 25-30 years ago, there was a notorious cop from the small town of Island Pond VT. His name is Teddy Miller. He was famous for the # of tickets he issued, and was known to pull people over (and ticket them) for being 'clocked' 1 or 2 mph over the posted (25mph I think) speed limit. You can look him up.
This is a perfect argument for why fines and fees need to go to the state and not let the local municipality keep the. That would tend to stop this kind of nonsense. BTW someone ought to put up a billboard at the last exit before this RICO town and direct folks to a detour around the town.
A couple of decades ago, there was a small town in Missouri, with no interstate near by, that was doing pretty much the same thing with speeding tickets. (the town was in a depression, the speed limit was 55 except at the town where it was 35, or less) They would stop people for one MPH over. And the town was making big bucks from the tickets. Untill they stopped a state representative. He went back to the capitol and had passed a law limiting the persentage of revenue a town could make on traffic tickets. The town reduced their police and only had one police car when all was said and done.
Did it happen to be Macks creek? They were known to be super bad years ago along Highway 54. They have no police force at all nowadays, but have heard all the stories from back in the day since i live about 20 miles away.
There were similar cases last decade in Ohio and Florida. In the end, the legislatures of both states dissolved the towns and turned them into unincorporated area of the county. No city, no police force.
@@KalebKronic Yep, that was Mack's Creek. They were so bad the legislature passed a state-wide law prohibiting towns and cities from using more than a certain percentage of their revenue from fines for operating expensed. I think the limit they set was 45% (still pretty high); Mack's Creek was getting close to 90% of theirs from fines. And, to no one's surprise, an audit of their finances found some significant irregularities in their books. It was so bad the residents voted to disincorporate and they are no more.
Texas addressed this problem decades ago with a law to prevent local jurisdictions from having more than a low and reasonable amount of traffic fines as a percent of other sources of revenue.
That's exactly what I was thinking. There's another way too. I believe it was in the '60s. A shitsburg in Georgia, located near the Florida border, had a scheme to make money the old fashioned way - they stole it from everyone passing through with out-of-states license plates, among other things. Things got so bad the Governor (Lester Maddox)? got involved and the bottom line was the town's municipal license was terminated. Poof, no government, no cops, no tickets, no more bullshit.
Авто/Мото
I am a former employee for the Town of Brookside and its police department. I worked as one of their dispatchers and I can only describe the experience as psychological terror. The employees are treated as bad if not worse than those stopped by the police. I quit after a year for many reasons, namely the corruption and horrid behavior. For over a year I told people the stories and no one believed me or thought I was just a disgruntled ex employee. It’s so nice to see justice on the way after having to sit back and see it go on for so long. Also, if anyone is curious, look up Mike Jones and his past. He is a known embezzler but was hired by Brookside despite this fact. If anyone is wondering where all this money is going then I can tell you - it’s going in his pocket and the mayor’s pocket. Thanks again for shedding light on this.
I for one am glad that you were able to get out of that hell hole. I think that you have been doing a better job than Sysiphus in relating this story. You have been vindicated. Please continue to provide assistance against this injustice. Evil wins when God men do nothing.
Yeah it sounds like organized crime from the top. The rest of the sycophants are forced to go along or leave.
WHO?!
Yes, I too hope that IS NOT your real name
Respect from Ireland my friend
The mistrust put into people by corrupt cops, judges and elected officials like this can never be undone.
Yeah I mean at this point the number of cases like this and worse abuse across the country I assume that cops judges and the rest are basically corrupt by default and we need to see evidence otherwise for exceptions.
@Baba Ganush issue at this point is for too long and far too many have decided that supporting other Police comes before integrity and duty to their community
But who is voting corrupt officials over and over again?
@@Krzemieniewski1 say it with me aliens 👽
@@Krzemieniewski1 The police officers and their supporters. It’s been proven that if someone has a vested interest in something they will go and vote for it more than someone who is against something.
Back in 2016, I had been a brick mason for years. My neighbors were the snooty type who would never talk to you about any potential issues, they'd just have the cops talk to you on their behalf. Well, I guess one day they got tired of the pallet of bricks in my backyard because they called the cops on me for "illegally dumping" off my dock. Yeah, me throwing bricks I paid for to do the job that keeps a roof over my head, in the lake. Tooootally.
So I lived in a small town in Michigan, only about a square mile wide. Completely no-crime area until this new police chief steps up after the old one retired, suddenly every single kid is a hoodlum, every driver is suspicious, you see where this is going.
Police chief himself responds to the call. Doesn't knock or anything, instead he just wanders into my backyard and starts taking pictures of my property without any sort of invitation.
I was woken up by my girlfriend at the time that there's cops in our backyard, so I rush downstairs and into the threshold of my backdoor in nothing but my boxers and ask the officer, "Hey, you got a warrant?" His response: "I don't need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation-" blah blah blah. He tried stepping up to me so he could occupy the threshold of the door with me, at which point he would already be inside the house. So before he got to me I took one small step forward and locked us both out of my house.
"Oh, you shouldn't have done that."
So he puts me in cuffs, says I'm being arrested for interfering with a police investigation and resisting an officer, and that he needs to run my license. I told him that for obvious reasons I didn't have it on me, it's in my pants, so he adds additional charges for failure to identify and failure to possess a valid ID. He proceeds to tell me that he can make do with my vehicle registration, so I tell him that I don't have my keys either and my car is locked, and that I do not consent to my vehicle being forcibly opened and searched. Didn't stop him, he broke into my car and retrieved my registration and POI from the glovebox on his own.
Takes me down to the police station IN my boxers, I'm released immediately after being booked, had to sign a bunch of stuff saying I'd appear in court (you bet your ass I was going to court over this, I told them as much). THEN had to have my girlfriend pick me up in my own car while I was forced to wait out front, still in my boxers.
The two weeks go by with regular phone calls from this guy telling me that if I just apologize for disrespecting him and his authority, he'll drop all charges and we can go about our lives. No way in hell was I doing that, I told him every single time I had him on camera abusing his authority and violating my rights, and I'd see him in court. On the DAY before, he calls me first thing in the morning and says it's my last chance and he'd *really* like to put this whole thing behind us, probably because I wasn't backing down. I told him: "You know what? Fine. I gotcha. I'm sorry you think I disrespected you and your authority by knowing my rights. I'm sorry you think that my voicing my displeasure at being wrongfully detained and then arrested and driven into public in nothing but my boxers was crossing a line for you. I'm sorry you're getting cold feet about going to court when you were all about levying charges on me in the heat of the moment. I'll see you tomorrow morning." and hung up.
We never got to court. Before the end of regular business hours that same day, the front desk lady at the local PD (who was honestly very nice and respectful, and we knew each other outside of her job, being a small town and all) called me in the early afternoon and told me that the department had dropped the charges against me and we wouldn't need to go to court. I was very appreciative of the fact that I didn't have to miss a day of work and thanked her for letting me know, but I wasn't done with him yet, so I asked her for the IA email address, and I get it.
I then email a copy of the video my girlfriend had taken the entire time I was being detained, cuffed, arrested, and hauled off. I didn't find out until after she picked me up and she told me about it, because she remembered another incident we had where I told her to record police interactions because they will absolutely lie and they're encouraged to do it. I also asked for and received the email of the Department Commander, since he was the highest up in the department you could go that was still beneath the Chief with any reports, complaints, or grievances. Sent him a copy too. I then went to the official website for the town to get the email for the city council board, sent them a copy. AND for good measure I sent a copy to Channel 7.
To make an already long story MUCH shorter, after waiting around a while and living life as normal, I find out that Chief isn't Chief anymore. I finally felt vindicated. I don't know if the video I sent to the news ever got any airplay, I don't watch the news like that, but I'm sure the bad publicity and reporters blowing them up for an investigation combined with it being an official city council topic of discussion on the docket played a role in the amount of pressure the town administration was under played a part.
Funnily enough, after a little while, the town went back to normal. Police were sleepy instead of jumpy, they'd actually wave to you instead of follow you around, the local kids stopped getting into trouble for nonsense reasons, people stopped telling me about getting tickets or pulled over for the most victimless of infractions.
Moral of the story: ALWAYS stand up to authority, especially when it's being abused. The only thing you do when you lay down and accept your fate is hand the opposition an easy victory.
The Institute for Justice has taken this on in a class action suit They had a first round victory in March 2023. Thank goodness for people in the IJ. They fight the seemingly unfightable. Thanks for getting this story out there!
Apparently the Police Chief resigned a couple days ago. Thank you Steve for helping to shed the light on these criminals.
Exactly! my friend, trekidaho... Yep... when they know that everybody knows that they are AT FAULT or have BROKEN their OWN LAW, they will go into HIDING or SIMPLY RESIGN from their position... Why can't CIVILIANS do the same??? ROTFLMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Wow that's pretty big news for a small corrupt town. Now hopefully they hire from the outside to replace him.
@@cme98 I'm sorry but isn't that what your 2nd amendment is for?
Maybe the town found someone that was even more crooked than that police chief that just left... Lol
Not only him, but 7 other officers have also resigned. Not sure how many are left, but it's probably still too many.
Policing for profit is rampant and the fact that other jurisdictions and appellate judges cast a blind eye, is utterly repulsive.
I love your description of the practice as being "utterly repulsive"! Nail on the head my friend!
And the solution is so simple too - all punitive damages imposed by any judge, or any police officer, and all proceeds of any asset forfeitures should by law be entered into the general fund of the federal government. No earmarking, as as non-local as possible, and with not singular identifiable cause which a police officer or judge might want to support.
And if that's politically not possible as a law, then any steps in that general direction would help; i.e. perhaps on a state-by-state level. But frankly, states shouldn't be incentivized to fine their own citizen either, so while that's better than nothing, it's not great.
@@MoireFly lol no. The federal government had nothing to do with this. We have this thing called the constitution.
The answer isn't centralized power 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@MoireFly how about we just do away with fines entirely? Seems obvious that a financial incentive to convict creates a conflict of interests.
@@deusvult6920 So your objection to having money be pooled where the incentives for fraud are massively diluted by sheer scale is...? Furthermore, pooling collected fines does not centralize power to _issue_ those fines in any way. And what exactly does having a constitution have to do with the appropriateness of a policy? The constitution is a _means_ to an end, not a item of worship; it has exactly zero relevance to picking ideal policy; it may have relevance to the details of implementability. Which is fine - the point is to separate those that issue fines from the proceeds of those fines. It's not that important exactly where those proceeds end up as long as that's as non-earmarked as possible to avoid kickback schemes. If a state treasury collects em, rather any branch of state or local law enforcement: that's still hell of a lot better than things are now...
We were pulled over by them earlier in the year. The officer walked up to the side of my truck. I didn’t notice that my younger brother had put his badge on the top of my armrest so when he looked in the truck he was able to see it.. The officer had asked me for my license and registration. I asked him what did I do to get pulled over. He got extremely upset and he went to grab my door to open it. He got a little bit more upset when he found it was locked and he was not going to get it open. My brother opened his mouth and told him that under the law he was required to tell me the reason why he stopped us. He was starting to get a lot more upset when he got yelled at and told how to do his job. He started to tell us that we were both going to jail and that’s when he got a badge pushed into his face. I thought he was going to pull out his gun but my brother was already on the phone with the state troopers and they had someone on the way to us. He wasn’t sure when he saw the badge of a dea agent but when he was not able to tell if I was the agent or my brother. When the troopers got there they told us to go ahead and get back out on the highway if we didn’t want to wait for the sheriff to come out and explain why one of his officers was doing radar on the highway out of his jurisdiction. We got the officer’s name from the troopers and the number for the state’s attorney general. I filled out a complaint and my brother is going after the officer who stopped us to make sure that he is never allowed to be a officer anywhere else in the country.
I hope this worked as planned, as you said.
Dash cam. Two words that will save a lot of pain. My son had a 2 week old Charger, which he worked very, very hard to afford. A person in an expensive truck backed into him then claimed my son rear ended him and he had neck injuries. My son had a dash cam with front and back cameras. Guess who won, my son.
Thank God for that dash cam! I’ve recently installed one in my vehicle as well…it should honestly be an option in vehicles today!
We live in an amazing country don’t we, where people are more then happy to lie, steal, and cheat and never feel bad about it. Sounds like most cops now days too, f*&$ing disgusting. Like we are headed back to the BC days
That isn't going to do you any good if the judge is crocked you should still get a dash cam though
You should have looked up the civil rights lawyer from West Virginia he is great. He sues on civil rights violations and has a detailed RUclips channel
Doesn't matter if the judge doesn't care.
This is the police force that needs to be federally investigated...now. The fact that the State has not stepped in, already.
If you live near there, buy a dash camera that shoots in at least 2 directions.
Any officer that gives false testimony where video evidence proves this needs to be held in contempt of court, be referred to for criminal contempt as a charge, and needs to have all of their old cases/testimony reviewed and possibly those old cases re-tried at the police department's expense without the officer's testimony.
"The fact that the State has not stepped in, already." Forget it, Jake. It's Alabama.
This reminds me of Philly cops and how there was so much corruption and extortion and other BS (that still happens) but the “highway patrol” in particular was pretty flippant about it. They rode motorcycles, wore Nazi style jackboots, and operated as more of a racist gang than anything else.
I don’t know if it was the state or feds but after numerous scandals they actually got kicked off the major highways and the State Troopers took over. I don’t get why Alabama can’t do something similar.
The Feds? Like the FBI, which is currently beung used by the democrats to investigate and harass their political opponents, but never seem to charge them with any crimes?
The DOJ is too busy labeling parents going to school board meetinngs aw shite supremacist domestic terrorists.
There is no system of justice in this nation any more, we have a legal system that is as corrupt as any third-world shithole nation run by a dictator.
That’s what I was thinking. Dash cams showing front and back windows and preferably one that automatically uploads to the cloud or somewhere off site. You know they will destroy that camera and any footage stored only inside. Plus the tinier the better so they won’t know you have footage until you get to court. Frankly I’d request a change venue for the court but I doubt they’d do that.
I'm from a small town in Alabama. This story is on point. Morgan county cops/ court system are one of the dirtiest institutions you can find.
I got a bogus ticket there too. Dashcam made the difference for me.
@@SavingSally not surprising at all. Long story but I moved away and came back 10 years later.
I got pulled over 3 times within a 30 day span. It was a total of 13 cops and a k-9 unit. I went and talked to the sheriff and threatened to get a lawyer involved... Luckily they left me alone after that.
On a recent trip to Birmingham, I saw several Hoover Police vehicles in the median on I22 near Brookside. They were still there hours later on the return trip. Someone explain that please.
Russell County is another one that is a money court!
The numbers in this story are insane!
The FBI needs to get involved and investigate this department, the local judge, and everyone associated with them. I expect some charges of deprivation of rights and conspiracy would follow.
This story is extremely similar to something I experienced, and I would like to add an additional layer that wasn't talked about in this video- The courts.
After me and a friend got pulled over on motorcycles in a small county (Glauster) off the Atlantic City Expressway, we got tickets for harassment and reckless driving because the cop said "we were messing with a buss". I told the cop (before getting the ticket) that yes we did pass 1 bus miles back but we did nothing wrong. I was 18 at the time, and after telling my family what happened, my grandfather insisted on hiring a lawyer "The best in the county". We get to court and neither the cop or bus driver were there, and the judge, the lawyer, and prosicuter were all best friends. They all met up in the back room for a few minutes and then the lawyer came out and said "I worked out a deal, all you have to do is plea 5 mph over the speed limit". As a nieve kid facing 5 points on my clean license, and who knows what kind of legal action (fines and probation? Driving school? Suspended license?) I happily took the "deal" like a life line. It wasn't until later I had realized how messed up the situation was, and that they all knew that, legally, they had to let me go due to nobody else showing up. I also understood why my grandfather was "not pleased" with the outcome when I learned how much money that scumbag lawyer charged him for 10 minutes of "work" hanging with his buddies, and I still had to pay the hundreds in court fees. I know they had that offer set up well before the court date. It's probably the standard deal they offer when they have nothing but want the fees. It's just wrong in so many ways...
If you care to hear it, here's the full story;
I had just got my motorcycle permit and took a day trip to the NJ shore with a friend. He had 2 bikes and decided we would go once I was legal (I already knew how to ride, grew up riding off road bikes, and had a car for 3 years). On the way home a bus was driving 5 under the speed limit in the left lane with a car next to it in the right, so we just stayed a bit behind the car (in a proper 2 bike stagger at a safe distance) for about a mile or so, with no other options. The bus driver decided he didn't want to stay in the left lane, after quite a while, and hit his brakes then pullied into the right lane behind the car he was riding next to (exactly where we had been the past 1 or 2 miles). My friend sped up and easily got in front of the bus and into the left lane, but as I waited for him to get clear the bus was already in my lane (the right) braking hard and forcing me over the "rumble strip" inches from the grass. I cleared the rear bumper of the bus just in time to switch to the left lane and pass. I felt like it might have been intentional and was shocked by the close call... About 3 more miles down the road a cop pulls us over and claims we "were messing with a bus". The driver called 911, (my 2 theories are A- he realized he almost ran someone off the road and was preemptively covering his ass, or B- it was a casino tour buss with histarical old people freaked out by the "scary motorcycle gang") I didn't even get a chance to hit the horn let alone make ANY kind of gestures, I just wanted to get far away from a clearly dangerous bus driver. That was it, we were tired and just cruising home minding our business. No goofing around what so ever.
I hired stites law llp to fight my bogus stop sign ticket In the bronx despite having a witness that said the officer told me he was instructed to give the me a ticket but believed I did no crime. Stites refused to provide me any information on my case and I ended up filing a complaint with the bar. This piece of shit tried to pull rep like I don't care who you worked for or how bad you think I am why did you withhold information from me for my case. The answer because he didn't do anything but confirm the officers testimony I could have done that. I left bad reviews on Facebook I was blocked one of my reviews deleted and stites wiped all negative comments on his page while leaving positive ones which is a violation of the consumer review fairness act.
You only made two mistakes in your story, kid. Talking bad about lawyers and old people. I'm an "old people" and Steve is a lawyer. However, I'm not one that gets upset when kids talk about our idiotsyncracies. :)
@@billyback1038 If your talking about me I can say this you boomers destroyed the economy making life harder for us young adults and as far as lawyers are concerned we can do without them.
@@billyback1038 I didn't mean to imply all old people are hysterical, I have deep respect for good people with life experience. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but we've all seen seniors get overly bent out of shape due to misunderstanding the little things that have become normal in the current day- maybe scary motorcycles, 5 kids of various races walking, minor HOA association violations, or someone turning around in a driveway. Misunderstanding different aspects of culture is obviously a human problem in general. I only have those two theories on why the driver would call the cops but I'm open to hearing any others...
As far as the lawyer, judge, and prosecutor I still say they're scumbags. They had a racket going and everyone knew it. I'm not saying everyone in those professions are all bad, just them three in particular.
absolutely disgusting. this is why everyone should have a dash cam installed
They would have ripped her dash cam off and destroyed it no ddoupt,
Johnny five o - Exactly!! Btw addicted to both of your channels!! Your phone calls to redress our government are hilarious and awesome!
@@Cryton12345 the footage can be uploaded to a server though. They cannot rip that out.
Yes, I have 3 in my car, some stream straight to the internet and offsite storage so destroying the dashcam won't destroy the video
And use the footage in court against the police.
We have investigated our behaviour and cleared ourselves of all wrongdoing.
Yep, that's what happens when the robber gets to investigate his own robbery.
@@thegreaseboys3263 yep or that's what happens when a r@pist gets to investigate his own r@ping of a fem@le.
@@1USAUSA Exactly
Good one!!! :)
Wow!..🤣🤣🤣
I got pulled over as I pulled into an autozone once, I was pulling into Autozone with a headlight out, it went out while i was driving and I went straight to the parts store, as I was pulling into a parking spot and getting out a police car came up behind me and wrote me a ticket for failure to maintain my car, this was Arlington TX, it happens in the big ones also. I told the officer is was pulling in to get a headlight and was informed that didn't matter and the moment my headlight went out I should have pulled to the side of the road and requested a tow. Like WTH
Between 20 and 26 years ago I was a traffic reporter for a local radio station.
I was the only non cop performer, as we just drove around and called different police departments for wrecks, and other things.
I started giving away police speed traps live when I saw them!
Never a complaint!
I know I've said it a million times, but this is what happens when the law is turned into a profit center.
Another word for this is "Fascism"
It’s also what happens when people ignore their local elections and focus too much on who’s running on the state and federal level…..none of those state and federal politicians have any where near the effect on your life or LE than the local politicians do, and no politician lies and misrepresents their platform or beliefs as those on the local level because the media ignores most of them. Hell most voters don’t even know who the hell their local politicians are, much less what they stand for.
hey my friend... not turned into... it has always been that way since day one all across the United States of America coast to coast. It's just now these things are coming out in the open because of EASY ACCESS to TECHNOLOGIES. Everybody is recording everybody else even themselves.
@iTz Wuzzi *trust me and judges and cops just get bribed* All the time, but they will give the IMPRESSION that they NEVER ARE INFLUENCED by MONEY and that they are UNBIASED and FAIR... Yea Right... ROTFLMAO!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@iTz Wuzzi what right have we given up?
Sounds like kidnapping, assault, and falsifying police reports in the case of the grandmother. Might be different in Alabama, but I'm pretty sure police have to be wearing identifying materials if doing traffic enforcement. The whole department should be arrested and charged with racketeering.
My thoughts exactly.
@@johnstjohn4705 My thoughts too. Scary stuff. This police dept and mayor think they are being cute, clever, but hopefully the consequences quickly catch up with them when investigated for committing some very serious crimes.
Sounds like the mayor, prosecutor and judge who preside over this traffic court has some serious questions to answer too.
In MI stopping someone from making a 911 (or any other call for that matter) is an additional "illegal wiretap" charge. These cops are unbelievable. They definitely need to be RICO'd.
@@gizmo5601 And some jail time to serve.
That town is absolutely corrupt
I once lived had a similar situation. I was shopping in a resort town that more than quadrupled its size during the summer. The town became afraid they'd get visitors like Spring Break in Florida (this was Delaware) and freaked out. That summer there somehow appeared FIVE law enforcement departments in that town. I was driving on the main street of town, having made a purchase in that town. As I pulled up behind a car stopped at one of the town's three traffic lights, on a road that went eight blocks total before leaving town and was NOT A THRU ROAD going anywhere (It turned around at the ocean) I honked to let in two girls hitchhiking after utilizing the town's movie theater. A cop car waiting behind bushes in the median pulled out and I was arrested for "stopping on the highway," and hauled off to county court at midnight. The girls were arrested for trespassing. I tried to fight the charges and established that the cop hadn't noticed I'd stopped behind a stopped car, at a red light the officer didn't notice was there. The cop said "You didn't stop for a stoplight, you, pulled over to pick up the girls (who were not allowed to testify or even be in the courtroom). I said, "If I pulled over, how was I stopped on the highway, and incidentallyhow is a blind-end street a highway?" At this point the cop flustered, got off the witness stand and started towards me swinging his balled fists and the judge allowed it. I caught the drift and changed my plea. The judge looked up the minimum fine and released me (after I got cash by calling my farther). The ticket disappeared without ever being listed on my driver's licence.
At the end of the summer, the merchants there petitioned the town in complaint after finding their store revenues severely decreased, as the word got out and people stayed away in droves. The next summer there was only the one local department.
“A band of thieves need only call themselves a government and their crimes become legal”
~F. Bastiat
Sounds as if the people of Alabama would be best served by dissolving this township.
I was thinking the same thing. Unincorporate this town and be done with it.
@@kd5you1 definitely
There are plenty of other towns that do this same crap. We need to ban victimless crimes. There needs to be more reasons why a cop can write a ticket other than just because they can.
A cop driving a Dodge charger followed me from Spokane to Ritzville. Then he started aggressively closing the gap between us. I was twenty years old, driving a used car I bought with 2 years of minimum wage paychecks.
I assumed the driver was trying to intimidate me for sport. So I maintained the exact correct speed limit. I got in the left lane, he sped up to drive parallel in the right lane. He refused to let me back into the right lane for 8 miles, and I was not willing to break the speed limit to pass him.
He pulled me over and gave me an $80 ticket for remaining in the left lane without passing anybody for 8 MILES.
My driver's license got yanked for that. The only ticket I ever got. I ended up homeless, living in the car. To this day, I never got my driver's license back.
Thank you for raising awareness about this. Policing for profit is a destructive trend in our country.
I agree totally with you Steve. I'm a retired LEO. Gaining reasonable compliance of the law by the public doesn't mean being a ticket writing fool or cops breaking the law. Judge needs to be investigated also. Lawsuits waiting to happen.
This all starts because we take a police officer's testimony as fact. If he says you 'rolled through a stop sign', then you did, period. No need for evidence or anything so inconvenient. "All power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely". With all the video capabilities out there, we need to stop this. Police should need to provide actual evidence: video, radar gun, etc. As in 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Does anyone remember that?
When we have cases like former police officer Zachary Wester planting drugs in people's vehicles I definitely have a hard time with the notion that a cop's testimony should automatically outweigh any other witness's testimony.
EVERY driver needs a dash camera! It is your word against theirs. Be smart and have your own evidence
Also, power attracts the corruptible.
Realize that most traffic infractions _are not crimes,_ but are civil infractions.
@@UncleKennysPlace true, but those are held to preponderance of evidence standards. In a "he said, she said" battle, a civil suit tends not to be winnable.
Had a similar issue with some small towns in Florida. We passed a statewide law that limited the percentage of a town's revenue that could come from traffic tickets. I believe any excess beyond that limit went to the state budget. Suddenly these towns weren't as motivated to write tickets.
I hope it's 0%
All ticket money should go to the state first, then handed out to local departments depending on need…any financial motivation to write a ticket just Leeds to corruption and is counter productive to public safety…this country is going to shit really fast
Waldo's (Fla) PD was disbanded...finally! Waldo along with Hampton FL, was one of the worst Speed Traps in Florida. They finally went too far and the governor had to shut them down...long overdue.
Lawtey is still a speed trap of sorts, but as far as I know, doesn't pull the crap that towns like Waldo did...they just STRICTLY enforce the speed limits thru down. But considering the lowest the speed goes is 45mph, it's not hard to obey.
@@swooopg
"All ticket money should go to..."
Needy individuals., families and the infirm. You know...
People in need, not governments.
@@harveywallbanger1738 no, that just creates lazy people that will never work…socialism doesn’t work
In Florida, Waldo and Starke had this problem and the state eventually had their traffic enforcement power removed because it was so egregious that travel agencies from every state included instructions to avoid them which made traffic worse everywhere.
Part of it was that people going to Disney were hit with massive tickets.
I'm Melissa's husband. We are from not to far from brookside. I used to drive thru their with my buddies in front of the mall to get to Homewood skate park and damn do we have some shit stories. They are absolutely brutal. It was awful driving thru their but because of where we were coming from, it would effectively cook less our drive time to take another route. Its worse than Vincent when it comes to traffic violations. Which, around here, that's really saying something. 36 in a 35 = ticket. Seatbelt sitting underneath your ladies chest (you know what I mean) that's at least an attempted ticket. Newborn in the car and you need to reach back to help them, ticket. A buddy of mine actually got a ticket for not having his lights on when raining. Problem is, it wasn't raining amd haven't been for over an hour. The cop actually tried to justify it by saying the roads were still wet. Never even heard of that before. I didn't even know people actually got tickets over their lights even if it was raining. There's a lot more and frankly what I did say ain't even bad. Some of the residemts there are literally blackmailed and extorted by the cops. They cops would know when their payday was, pull them over, and take their cash under threat of a bogus arrest and getting their car towed. They are insane. Many times, the county sheriff and deputies had to go and literally rescue citizens from brooksides police.
An example of cops earning the hate.
But I bet they get bonuses too.
They never learn do they? I guess they don't care if they are hated by the general public.
A small town near me (Porter , Oklahoma pop. 700) had a similar problem. Not much traffic through there, so the police were getting the locals for 1 mph over and a lot of other ridiculous tickets. They had a system where you could pay the fine to the officer right then with a credit card. ---The town voted to do away with the police department. End of problem.
they screwed up by ticketing locals it sounds like. you let the locals off scot free and ticket others while spending money on the town is how you succeed apparently
I've heard of porter... What happened to those cops once power was removed?
@@BobbyGeneric145 - They probably found jobs in other departments.
Nothing but removing and hanging the corrupt cops won't cure.. public officials should get public punishment..
As long as they can write tickets over petty victimless crimes no problem will be solved.
I'm from Brookside, In the year before this story, they pulled me over probably 20 times. Most times most times they let me go, once they gave me 2 tickets for wreckers driving and failure to yield for emergency vehicle. They are the only department to pull me over in the last 10 years. We are now down to 2 cops and a supervisor.
I need to see if there's been an update here, or in another channel. This is exactly what the Justice Dept should be investigating.
Sounds like racketeering laws should be applied.
The feds have filed a statement of interest in a civil suit brought against the Brookside Criminal Conspiracy Department, but they haven't, as far as I know, put boots on the ground to start a criminal investigation. They should. If you're going to get a federal RICO case out of any small town, Brookside is the one. This is a town that should be shut down, top to bottom. The Mayor, city council, prosecutors, every cop in the Department and clerks should all be under a full criminal investigation.
Public-Sector Criminals are destroying our Liberty and Freedom. "All Politics Is Local> Vote-Change-change-change..Vote - vote - vote...
Lol exactly!
The government allows them to get away with it, what does that tell u.
The police went from 50 tows to 789 tows in 2020 - when most people were quarantined at home and only essential workers went to and from work. Oh, and an occasional run to get food and supplies. The year that America was locked down, the police tow rate went up 1560%!!!!
The quarantine in the South was very different than much of the country.
I would bet their is a relationship between police and the tow. Mayor probably owns the truck.
@@SatansSimgma your must be physic.
That's mind boggling
But the cops will say aren't we doing a good job. oh ya they are doing a good job robbing people of there hard worked for paychecks. this town seems to do anything to justify the myth they are serving and protecting its the who they are protecting that is in question. it sure as hell isn't people who travel near their jerk water town. .gotta beware of the good ole boy system and its hangin" judges too. you will never get justice anywhere near that town.
I'm from Alabama and I've never heard of brookside. It makes me mad that things like this still happen in small towns. They know people will probably just pay the fines instead of fighting them. I think they need to be investigated by the FBI. All small towns that make money from speed traps should be investigated.
The way things are the FBI is probably either complicit or behind the activity and takes a cut just like Old Joe.
We're in a very sad place as a nation and humanity in general.
Same thing happened to me. Cop said I had run a stop sign and I really had stopped. He pulled me over 4 blocks and two more stop signs past the intersection. There was no way he could have even seen me at the time I went through that intersection. He intensely interrogated me on where I was headed, where I was coming from, why I was in the neighborhood,, etc. It would have cost me much more in lost wages to fight it than to just pay. There are deceptive and abusive police officers everywhere. Standards to get that job need to be increased.
Flashing lights to warn other drivers isn't illegal but interference with a 911 call definitely is!
Depends on where you are
There is case law, in Florida, that flashing headlights is 1A free speech. A different jurisdiction, but 1A is 1A.
And they also would have pulled her over for not having her lights on. /s
In many states, blinking your brights to warn of police ahead is against state law.
And the article describes the officer seized the lady's phone and destroyed it. That's a 5th Amendment violation right there, an illegal taking.
In my state, it is a crime to prevent someone from calling 911.
It's a crime everywhere
Need to get multiple car clubs that have police involved with car clubs to roll through town ! Outcome would be interesting !
Steve, when you said “Here’s where it gets really crazy”….i was already exploding,10 times over.
I can’t even believe this is a real situation!
Every one of those scoundrels should be incarcerated and prevented from ever holding a job in enforcement for life.
You can’t tell me this doesn’t happen in enough states to warrant a class action lawsuit.
Unfortunately qualified immunity puts a stop to any prosecution. End qualified immunity now. Until it ends, stuff like this will continue.
They knew the law and made up laws, QI should not protect them.@@Kathyskollectables
It does, some places worst.
"Production" is actually one of the popular euphemisms that police departments use for what normal people would call 'quotas'
...plus ' performance standards ' and ' goals'.
The Mayor, Judge, and every cop in that town should be arrested for violating the public's constitutional rights.
They should do long sentences.
This cannot stand in America!!!
I grew up in a small town in Washington and in my teen years we had a LOT of problems with the local police. Yes my friends an I were on the rowdy side but we weren't criminals by any means. My parents were friends with the Chief of police and apparently that made me a target, as most of the police on staff hated him. Turns out most of the staff were officers from other areas who had been fired for various levels of illegal acts, as often happened back then and they disliked the chief because he was a by the book guy.
Long story short, throughout my teen years I somehow accrued 66 arrests. Never once was I put in handcuffs, nor charged with a crime. I only found out about the arrest record when I applied for a job with high security clearance. But there is nothing I can do about all the fake reports they filed. They had me listed as a person of interest in a stolen car case, that happened 9 months after I and my family moved to Arizona. It's amazing these "police" officers didn't get arrested themselves. I didn't know any better, I was just a kid in a sleepy town and thought almost daily police harassment was normal.
I've been saying for a couple of years now that there need to be a entity to investigate the police misconduct that is not attached to the police in any way and have the ability to arrest just police in any wrongdoings. The police are too easily corrupted when they know they are going to be protected internally
Who’s going to govern it? We have the Legislative, executive and judicial branch but they all conspire to promote each other’s perversion. The Supreme Court drops the ball more often than not. We don’t need to police the cops. We need less cops because the ones we have generally suck.
@@RadDadisRad we absolutely have to police the cops or else we have effectively zero rights and we dont live in a nation anymore we just live under the thumb of feudal lords known as sheriffs
@@RadDadisRad Tax paying citizens.
Complain on the judge instead. He's letting it happen. The Judicial Inquiry Commission, created under the provisions of the Alabama Constitution, is charged with investigating complaints of misconduct or professional wrongdoing on the part of judges.
Absolutely correct Geoff. The majority of the LEOs in the state of CT are CORRUPT to the bone. Being in a Blue state, they know that they are protected from the Governor and AG on down to their own Chief. It is time to GET RID OF THEM and replace them with people who have morals and ethics and truly do "Protect & Serve".
Exactly what we dealt with in Stringtown, Colcord, Big Cabin, and a few others here in Oklahoma. It got so bad the the FBI and DOJ got involved back in the mid 00’s and a judge, a police chief (Stringtown), as well as several officers and deputies were convicted of multiple crimes and were jailed. Stringtown was back it it in no time until the Oklahoma department of public safety completely removed their right to patrol any federal or state highways in their jurisdiction in 2019. Kiowa county officers and deputies have also lost their right to enforce traffic rules on any state or federal highways. Lots of scams out there, none worse than those perpetrated by government officials.
Yep...don't forget Kiowa and Savanna Oklahoma (north of Stringtown) bad enough for locals but killers for Texas and other out-of-state plates...it's a cash cow that just keeps on giving....//
EVERYONE in Oklahoma knows about Stringtown!
Asher, Hulbert, Bernice
@@garymackey850 There is several towns in Texas that are horrible. One I can't remember the name is on US 287 up near the Panhandle and several on US 59. I got stopped about 5 years ago in Tenaha Texas. Then there is Corrigan, Texas. In my situation in Tenaha I got so pissed off I came close to taking a swing at that idiot that stopped me. The thing that bothered me the most was the cop was more interested in how much cash I had on me. Mind you I was just stopped for doing 10 over. I finally told the cop all I had was plastic and maybe $40 in cash. During that time I was working on two different contracts and had to drive between Shreveport Lousianna and Lufkin Texas several times. After that day I went around Tehaha. I never have been back through there since I paid my fine.
@@scittw22 I forgot about Hulbert. I remember hearing how bad they were. Also Warr Acres is really bad.
Good lord.... that is terrifying. That 53 year old woman story sounds like an unbelievable nightmare.
thank you for posting the link, they're very helpful
I certainly hope that this story prompts an FBI investigation.
The FBI won't look into police departments that kill Black children. Do you really think they will investigate traffic claims?
What the video does not talk about is the misdemeanor charges, and FELONY charges..They are illegal DRUG charges!!!! Small town infested with DRUGS and CRIME, that has been OVERLOOKED for decades. They also patrol 1.5 miles of I-22 because Jefferson County only has ONE officer to cover about a 40 square miles are, that includes I-22. The State and County RARELY patrol I-22, which is a PIPELINE for illegal drug and human trafficking from Atlanta to the Memphis area, and further northwest. Brookside Police STOP illegal drugs from heading to a town near you, by enforcing the law on I-22 and in their small town. The people who say they didn’t commit a crime, are flat out liars. Most of these big dollars are also from Brookside PD performing felony arrest warrants. These are some of the bravest police officers out there, doing their job for pennies. They could easily sit and eat donuts all day, but they are highly trained, unlike the surrounding towns, and should be appreciated and thanked for cleaning up the small town and stopping the illegal drugs from coming to a town near you.
@@boosted10speed hahaha 🤣😂 the chief of police stepped down
This is by definition extorsion. I hope the little old lady wins her case. Hopefully this will bankrupt the town. This is clearly not legal. The entire police force and mayor need jail time.
This is organized crime! A RICO case , get the FBI in on it !
@@robertdillon9989 Are you kidding? The FBI is at the top of the "crooked" heap?
Wow..... that is exactly what my sister told me about the cop at the corner as she reached the stop sign. She saw him, he saw her. She made sure to stop, but still he claim she ran the stop sign. This is odessa texas.
I, being a commercial driver of vehicles that can have a 2 ton overload legally, have been put through the wringer. I've been stopped for a trailer the DOT occifer didn't think was level. I was run over from behind by a sand frac truck as I was just getting into my truck. He was exceeding the speed limit, ignoring signs to slow down including strips on the pavement to gain his attention. Just as I sat down after checking my rig, I saw a KW fly by me(in the air). He had driven up on my drop deck trailer that had loading ramps that led to about 18 inches off the ground. Just as I was about to reach for my lemon water and put on my seat belt, I saw his tractor at least 5 feet off the ground fly by my right side(off the road) and then his trailer axles hit the back of my loaded tractor, loaded with concrete made underground pieces made to form a waterway getting off the main hiway. I was knocked into the windshield by the back of the daycab tractor I was driving, never having time to get my seat belt on, and slammed into the windshield of my tractor. The driver of the other rig ended up stopped 3//8th of a mile, up against a fence with ruined trailer axles and my trailer was also badly damaged. If he had waited another second to swerve his tractor off my load, I wouldn't be writing this. The impact knock my head so hard my sight was impaired. I had neck injuries and waited for an ambulance since I didn't feel confident to driver further.
The DPS(Texas), arrived right after I was loaded on to the ambulance that rode like a bucking bronc and asked me if I had my seat belt on. Obviously, right after shutting the door and being hit, I had no time to belt up. I was issued a ticket for no seat belt, never getting a chance to say why I was not belted. I was in the back of a quarter mile line of stopped traffic and had stopped at least 40 feet from the one ton welding rig and several more since I knew the hill was sharp and anyone that ignored the signs(flashing lights, strips across the road and so on with signs saying stop ahead). The DPS asked me if I had on a seat belt. I replied "No, I had no time to belt up and wouldn't have anyway since seat belts are the worst thing to happen to big rigs since 3 piece wheels." He issued me a ticket I was unable to sign being strapped down on the godawful thing they put in ambulances for you to be tied down. He wrote me a ticket. I have no idea of what was done to the idiot that ran up on my load and barely missed killing me. There is nothing worse than an idiot with a badge who shows up to make life more miserable. My company lawyer got the ticket dropped but tonight, I'll barely go to sleep for 4 or 5 hours and my neck will be killing me. I'm 72 now and began driving a truck when I was 14 with no "at fault" wrecks or tickets during that 3 million miles lifetime of driving just about everything you can think of. Law dogs are a truckers nightmare. They exist only to take your money. I have met few DOT occifers that had any type of understanding of driving a big rig. The state makes laws that are only for producing revenue. That was 6 years ago and I wake every night with my neck killing me. I am Soooo grateful to that DPS occifer since he simply made my life more hell that needed.
Maybe they should remember that Alabama is an open carry state. Unmarked person in an unmarked vehicle is a threat.
Exactly. Doing what they are doing is a good way to end up like Buford Pusser's and his wife....
This was my exact thought, totally unmarked people trying to make you exit your vehicle. Someday one will get shot, And if it does happen I hope that driver has good dash cam coverage front and rear in HD at a minimum. That way when they inevitably end up in court they can show on video that person was not in any way displaying proof of being a law officer.
Some places in the US have in fact made it illegal for unmarked vehicles and plain cloths officers to conduct traffic stops. Mostly for officer safety.
Law enforcement in general is out of control!!
There's a lack of accountability and consequences for their misconduct!
GET A DASH CAM AND ALWAYS RECORD THE POLICE!!! THEY ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND, AND THEY'RE NOT HERE FOR YOU!
Agreed, It's a systemic problem. What's the solution?
@@kkal1183 End qualified immunity and staff Internal Affairs with citizens who have no ties with law enforcement.
This, law enforcement policing law enforcement isn't working
@@kkal1183 And, all police body cam and vehicle camera footage should go straight to a public website. Where it is saved for 5 years.
In Missouri, the town was named "Macks Creek". The city of 270 derived 75% of its entire operating budget from speeding tickets on the state hwy which passed through their city limits. It was notorious because it was on a main feeder highway into the Capitol. The city actually was known nationally for being a speed trap. (Google it). There was no warning and zero tolerance. Finally, they ticketed a state representative going to work who decided "enough is enough". He got a bill passed which limited any city from getting more than 45% of their budget from tickets. It was then amended down to 30% with a provision that violations would lead to loss of municipal court authority for the offenders. Macks Creek had to declare bankruptcy and the citizens voted to disincorporate. A happy ending.
There are many towns like that. A friend of mine I played racquetball with drove through the speed trap of a little town near where I lived. He got stopped and written up for speeding (he wasn't), following too close (although there were no cars in front of him), no license (even though he handed his license to the local) and no insurance (same, handed the proof). He planned to contest it until he found out that you had to put up $100 per charge to do that. Wisely, as a black man in a very rural county in the 1990s, he knew his odds of winning were slim so he just paid the fines and let it go. And never drove that road again. That small town put all their popular western wear stores out of business by writing tickets to everyone who drove through there that wasn't a local.
The purpose of a citation(ticket) is to promote public safety. Ive worked in small towns for half my career. Where i work now the chief and mayor both have been ethical and neither have told me to write tickets. The last place i worked the mayor demanded we write tickets cause "the city needs money", told the chief to fire any officer that didnt write them. This mayor even told me personally [to write] the city needed money. I write approx 1 in 15 ppl i stop which may be couple a month. Our judge helps ppl by reducing fines and even dismissing some. Fyi, i prefer public relations. We work for the people. Our job is to protect people, property and keep the peace.
Unfortunately as one of the good co[s, you don't receive the praise you do. Thank you for upholding your oath.
I hope you wrote the dirty mayor a ticket cause it sounds like he deserves one.
I woulda sat outside city hall for the mayor to get in his car then lit his butt up with every obscure charge possible.
Thank you Joel for being a true police officer with character. Sadly officers and departments like this put good officers like you in jeopardy. People abused by the system become desperate and unpredictable. Be safe out there and thank you for your honorable service to your fellow human beings.
I got a ticket for passing a line of slow cars going 50mph, I passed all of them going 80mph, merged back and got back to 65mph, but the officer still saw me and decided to pull me for going 80mph, for literally improving the flow of traffic...
I just said fúck it and paid off the ticket
This happens all over the country all of the time. Buy a good dash cam (forward and rear) that logs gps data and use it religiously. Exercise your rights to not incriminate yourself by not answering questions and to be free from warrantless searches. And ALWAYS record police encounters.
Remember what Steve said "your video is evidence".
Nice idea but the judge doesn't have to accept your video evidence. Videos can be faked, you know (according to a Dekalb County (Georgia) judge anyway).
Judges in small towns don't care about your video. Cost so much to fight it.
Under "normal" conditions I would agree with you and the suggested measures... but these are extreme and blatant .. So normal measures won't be adequate ..Just choose to not be a victim by refusing to make yourself available to play their game.. Drive around the community.. its cheaper than a ticket
It's sad but this is pretty tame compared to the corruption and criminality in my small town in Montana! It's really like the wild west before law and order was introduced!! The problem is there is no oversight, as our population numbers are so low, the culprits get away with their crimes because they are all in on it! Yes the cops, the judges, the news paper, anyone connected in the community is milking the system for all they can!!! We are entering a period of lawlessness in America which is destroying our civilization! I am still amazed that Trump doesn't realize the president's main job is the enforcement of the rule of law!!!!
For anyone who is watching this video in late 2022 and is disgusted and frustrated there is a sweet sweet revenge story full of irony after all this. Mike Jones, the police chief during all of this ticketing for profit, resigned as chief of police a few months after these allegations were made public and viral. A few months after that, he was pulled over in another town for doing 77mph in a 55 zone, but he got away without a ticket because he presented the sheriff's deputy with his badge from when he was chief of police in Brookside. While this may make you more disgusted and frustrated to learn, you'll be happy to know that when the sheriff's office found out that Jones had resigned as chief of police, they decided to send someone to his home with a warrant for his arrest for impersonating an officer, as that was not a valid police badge, and he has been indicted by a grand jury for both impersonating an officer and speeding, punishable by up to 10 years in prison for a class C felony. And this is completely unrelated to the fact that just a few weeks ago judge recently ruled that officers from this town that are being sued will not be protected by qualified immunity from a class action lawsuit against their money driven ticket policy. We may actually see some justice served here
The police chief resigned.. and then got ticketed for speeding. He tried to use his badge to get out of the ticket, and has now been indicted for impersonating a police officer.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny, when the government fears the people, there is liberty.-Thomas Jefferson.
I envy those who think these sort of things are isolated to small towns, but since misery loves company, I am hear to tell you
that this rot has infected the whole country.
FACT!!! It is coast to coast... It is just that they haven't brought up in the open yet. I like how some people reason... *Well, if the news media is not talking about this, then this doesn't happen everywhere....* Yep... And look how these people were in COMPLETE shock when Jeffery Epstein shenanigans came out... *No way, politicians and/or gobermint officials would participate in this llegal activities...* Ummmm ... right... lol... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@1USAUSA corruption all the way up
We used to have that problem in Oklahoma, then the state legislature passed a law where no more than 20% of a city’s income can be from tickets and fines, and 4 mph or less over the speed limit you can only get a warning. Those speed trap towns have shriveled up significantly!
@LeMarkD Yes, that is a good solution to stop this kind of behavior. Thanks!
Sounds like even the county that Brookside was in was corrupt too.
At this point the State has power to go in there and clean it up.
I feel that the ticketing authority should not get any revenue from ticketing (aside for court costs) as it is a perverse incentive, as seen in this story.
@@jamesonmiller8283 the way the state wrote the law was that they estimated how much income the small towns with major highways passing through their main streets might need to provide decent law enforcement based on average crime levels and officers per capita, then told them if they want more funds to police more then they need to increase taxes on locals. If it was really a problem locals would be ok paying more tax to have more policing, if it wasn’t really necessary then the people would push back against tax increases.
And many citizens painted “speed zone ahead” signs all over, even on parked semi trailers.
20%, unbelievable
Another perfect example ,of the need, to address qualified Immunity...
In Aug 2022, a small town (pop. 274) in Arkansas called Menifee was audited by the state and found to have at least 50% of the city's revenue come from tickets. Arkansas has a law stating that no more than 30% of a city's revenue can come from tickets. So now they have been banned from writing tickets for 1 year. A news station looked at their records for an approx 4.5 year period. One officer had written 771 tickets in that period while the next highest was 263 and ZERO warnings had been issued. I'd love to know how these guys have been filling their time for the past 6 months or so.
I've always been told to call 911 before stopping for an unmarked car, especially at night, so that's crazy that they charged her for doing that
NM has a state law ⚖ saying NO plain clothes or unmarked vehicles, SUVs can do traffic enforcement. No nonsense traffic tickets. Only police Lts or above can approve a traffic stop in plain clothes. Unmarked 🚔.
Excellent idea!
You do that in brookside and they will get you for that say you made a call that wasnt a emergency..
This stuff needs exposure, thanks a million Steve! I was arrested on hearsay from an out of state individual and the officer charged me with assault on an officer and dropped me off at jail for processing even though I was calm, cooperative and everything with him and had done nothing or damaged nothing. It was a huge ridiculous ordeal in my life and turned me into an outspoken individual!
Thank you for speaking out.
Oh my gosh, YES! In fact, I think I may have missed more than one briefing. Lol.
Also...it would be great to see an update to this story.
The information in this video was great. Thank you for sharing. I'm from Oklahoma City and we have a similar problem here in a little town called Valley Brook. The police and the judge are just as bad if not worse. Only it's been going on here for 20 to 30 years that I know about. Maybe you could come up with a story about that place. Thanks again.
they need some 1st amendment auditors to record the speed traps and get arrested so they can make a federal case of it.
If I were involved in the investigation into this I'd take a good hard look at the circumstances of the previous mayors death a year ago. Kind of odd that the mayor passed away, then 5 minutes after his replacement and the replacements henchmen got installed things go off the rails. Sounds almost like the old mayor got "removed" for standing in the way of an extortion racket.
Public officials should be required to prove that they aren't corrupt at threat of death.
The PEOPLE of the United States are innocent until proven guilty; our elected representatives are not.
they forced him to eat red meat until he got bowel cancer
You can see that armored thing outside their station on google street view. Totally necessary for them to have...
Please keep up the good work. This sort of thing needs exposure. And when government that is supposed to be protecting us, I guess this type of exposure, it helps the people. Please keep this up and if you do I will keep watching and forwarding your videos
For a town that small, someone should hide several cameras in the high traffic areas. That way there will be evidence of their corruption. The Chief, Officers, and Judge need to be behind bars.
If I were wealthy I would drive through, get my ticket, and make it my life's work to destroy that town's government...completely bankrupt it and destroy the reputations of all involved...create a private foundation dedicated to doing this to corrupt towns like this..
YOU DON'T JAIL CORRUPT POLITICIANS, JUDGES OR COPS, YOU HANG THEM IN THE TOWN SQUARE.. SEND A MESSAGE.
@@hakimcameldriver Those stocks they had on the town common centuries ago. Where criminals had their head and hands locked into it. We need to bring those back... pronto.
This country has absolutely over hired, overpaid and undertrained law enforcement in this country. They see the citizens as prey.
Absolutely! I have never been arrested or even detained and I obey the law, but my biggest concern is not being a victim of a crime by a common criminal, it’s being exploited, taken advantage of and or robbed by the police.
Training doesn't change anything about that
They are training them on the job
I was in Charleston SC on the bridge, (I lived in Charleston at the time and was familiar with the speed limits, etc) and an old red truck swerved around me speeding fast and beeped at me, I was going literally exactly the speed limit (actually was this time) and right when I could say to myself "woah, what was that for?!" An unmarked car got behind me and put his lights on. I was like "what is happening right now?!" I put my turn signal on, slowed down as much as was safe and waited til the pulloff at the Mt Pleasant side of the bridge so as to not stop traffic and put him in danger, which apparently was fine, but He said I was speeding but didnt know how fast. He was wearing a purple shiny suit with white alligator shoes and sunglasses. And a badge around his neck. Like a caricature of one of those preachers.
Wrote me a ticket for careless operation (for unknown speeding), no points, $225.
Was super aggressive and rude and wouldnt explain anything to me.
I went to court and pled not guilty. I said "Not Guilty" and the judge literally said in response "you callin my officer a liar?" Verbatim exchange. I was shocked. Literally implied I was calling "his" officer a liar in court simply from me saying the words "Not Guilty".
I saw where that was going. They just steamrolled/bullied me with their minds already made up and I had to pay $225 for I have no idea what, to this day.
Remember folks...the cops are "their" cops. Thats the day I learned they're all on the same team and get paid by the same city.
Still remember that judge's name, but dont want a frikken Fatwa on my head by Charleston PD. Who, you'd think would have better stuff to do.
Similar situation many years ago--mid-80s I think--in Coburg, Oregon. City limits included a small section of Interstate 5, and Coburg Police began ticketing people for speeding in that section. Newspaper article said ticket proceeds were being used to buy (going from memory here) new "Beretta and Heckler & Koch firearms" and "gleaming new BMW and Harley-Davidson motorcycles." Coburg was and probably is a very small town just north of Eugene, Oregon.
Back in the 1970s there was a crooked police operation in Southaven, Mississippi. At the time, the legal drinking age was 18. There was a Navy training center and base in Millington, TN and the drinking age there and in Memphis, TN was still 21. These guys would target mainly servicemen by stalking in the parking lots of bars and pulling over vehicles with out of state plates. The problem was so bad the Navy had to put these establishments "off limits" for the service members on liberty. The officers there were paid by how many arrests they made. Conflict of interest, I think.
Desoto County is still as crooked as ever. Probably worse.
San Diego CA police had similar issues. Next door National City was know as Nasty City for a reason.
I was there in 1980 and it was pretty much the same they would actually grab you and steal your money beat the crap out of you and run off and this was the police
It never ends when it comes to citizens and police, does it? Here, in upstate NY (about 2 1/2 miles North of NY City), the local cops were asked, on multiple occasions, by the mayor, the city council, and some citizen's groups) to stand outside or sit in their cars near the free parking lot downtown, where the bars and restaurants tend to be.
Every single time I'm aware that this has been contemplated - as far as I know, it's never been implemented - it's a tourist town, and the bar and restaurant owner's association has had more than enough clout to prevent the implementation of any such "program".
Steve, I respectfully disagree with you regarding giving police (more) discretion than they have already. Any officer that writes a ticket for something that isn't a crime, and attests to having witnessed the commission under perjury, should be charged with perjury. Moreover, if, when writing and signing said ticket or attestation, the penalty they're assessed should be enhanced by the fact they were in possession of a deadly weapon; being "on duty" should be prima fascia evidence of being "on duty".
I believe the legal drinking age (off base) was 18 for beer, 21 for hard liquor. At least that was what it was when I was stationed in Biloxi back in 1972.
I grew up in this very town. They have spent years harassing my brother and now have him doing thousands of dollars in tree work to "pay down his fines". But he still seems to have to be doing multiple days of work without it being paid off. That town is a joke! And 55 reported crimes because they're not reporting it or they're involved in it. I stay out of that town as much as I can because of their harassment.
This is slavery
Work will set you free!
I do engineering consulting and personally have never been in this part of Alabama. However, someone I know worked a contract in that town a while back. He was born in Northern Alabama and has family in that town. Last I heard he had either already filed a lawsuit or was about to. Several of the cops there were harassing him, he has it all on video.
@Ross Radford Salty Army is Legion
Time to move and stay low until the statue of limitations expire.
As someone growing up in Germany and only moving back to the US when I was 26, I was baffled by the amount of small town police stations and stuff.
I find it ridiculous that police is not basically county wide (larger cities might have their own separate stations because of high population) and that funding is not done by the state or federal government.
Money from tickets should go back in the overall pool with taxes either for the state or federal government and not determine funding of the police station writing the ticket and also not be used for the town/city.
This is nuts. Off to watch the update, hope there is some justice.
We need to stop profit policing.
We need to collect data on all police departments so this type of abuse can be stopped.
Steve, look up what happened in Fruithurst, Alabama some 48-50 years ago. It was a little town off US-78/I-20 in east Alabama close to GA. It, too, was a ticket mill, and after too many complaints, was busted by the Alabama state patrol in an undercover operation. The city charter was subsequently dissolved. I doubt that all of the past charges were nullified, much less refunded as ticket revenues constituted a massive part of the city's budget.
This needs to be addressed by the state congress...
It's a return to the olden days when you had to be aware of highwaymen. Now, the crimes are perpetrated by the government.
I wouldn't exactly call these corrupt pigs "government "
You know who insists that someone else is lying? Liars do.
💯💯💯💯💯
I was once stopped at 2 AM on my way to a concrete placement at work. The stop was for accelerating prior to completely passing beyond an increased speed limit sign. I was told to exit my vehicle and asked if I had a weapon on me. Specifically a gun or knife. Because I had a folding knife on my belt and a smaller pocket knife in my pocket the small town police officer called for back up from the county. After all who needs a strong working knife AND a smaller razor sharp knife? I was then subjected to what they called a felony arrest. This involved having a shot gun barrel pressed against the back of my head on my knees and handcuffed behind the back, while they ransacked my truck. Somehow they managed to find "less than a tenth of a gram" of an unspecified controlled substance. I was taken to the county jail where the jailers (with me sitting there) openly discussed how the officers didn't know how to write up charges. They proceeded to amend my charges, including intent to distribute the less than a tenth of a gram of unspecified controlled substance, that was by the way, stated to be destroyed during field testing. This ran my bail up so high that I had to wait out the 21 days to be taken to court, where somehow 90% of the charges had disappeared. I elected to not mention the discrepancy . I was told by the court appointed lawyer that I could be released that day if I would plead guilty or go back to the jail and await a hearing to set a court date. I kind of surprised them by pleading no contest but the judge accepted it and gifted me with time served, a fine and 12 months supervised (and costly) probation. Yeah, it's a railroad and once on that train it's very hard to get off. Easy to get on though. It could happen to anyone.
I guess Alabama isn't really worried about tourism. This is very important to know. One drive through the wrong town can destroy or even end your life.
I grew up in a small town with out of control police. When my brother bought his 1st car, he left school to find his tire was flat. While putting air in the tire and trying to figure out what happened a resident told us a police officer flattened the tire. This same cop later wrote my brother a ticket while we were leaving. The ticket was written for not having a state inspection sticker in the window. My brother fought the ticket and won because the car had just been purchased and was still on temp tags and had until the tags expired to get the inspection. The local magistrate was outraged with these officers after hearing all the facts from my brother and I. We were lucky because we worked for the magistrate doing logging and farm work and he knew we were honest kids. He chewed out the officer for flattening the tire and dropped all charges.
In our yuppie suburb area the police wanted at will warrantless searches for teens. They made pre-consenting to searches a condition of parking in the school parking lot, then put up no parking signs for an entire mile(!) around the highschool.
And then gave all of us teens in class parking tickets. Because of course they did.
Later they'd call students down to have their car searched 'because drug dogs alerted' who hadn't driven that day. Basically if you were one of the poors (didn't dress preppy, or didn't drive a late model car) you were searched.
@@seanclark8452 Sounds like I'm unconditional requirement for parking at school.
Again another example of revenue generation. Not having a state inspection sticker has absolutely nothing to do with public safety whatsoever. It proves once again it's all about the money.
This is a case for the state AG as well as the FBI for pattern of civil rights abuses.
Yes, I agree it's not just the south or Alabama. And I saw the comment about Missouri. I am a resident of Missouri and
I was being questioned by a city cop and I was calm and nonaggressive answering all his questions and he moved
around behind me and did a bulldozer like maneuver into the small of my back and I was violently hit and pushed at a
quick pace until I ended up on the hood of his cop car. He then stood up and started yelling, "Did you guys see that?",
"Did you guys see that?", talking to the other officers that had just arrived on the scene. He then stated, "this guy was
resisting arrest". The other two officers replied with "no". He charged me with resisting arrest, which was later dropped in court. He was a punk and if the situation were different, I would easily schooled him on his crooked ways.
OMG, I hope every officer working in this town gets their fair share of karma.
in jail. There I fixed it.
But there are no officers... only _agents._
they won't. some might get let go if they can't uphold the racket.
This is common in small towns, everywhere. Here's how it goes. Council spends all the money, needs more money, realizes raising taxes too much (because they're still going to raise taxes...can't miss an opportunity to get all the money) could hurt their re-election chances. Council looks into ways to make money. (Insert fly-by-night traffic camera companies here.) Council, through public safety director, tells appointed Police Chief to write more tickets, because tickets = $, and who is going to stick up for "unsafe drivers"? Police chief of course opts to continue feeding, clothing, and sheltering their family and sends the order down the chain to the sergeants, who are tasked with discreetly telling patrol to write more tickets without telling patrol to write more tickets. Strange things happen to departmental opportunities, such as K9 school, SWAT school, detective school, the assignment to which are now more dependent on "satisfactory traffic enforcement" (wrote enough tickets) appearing on the officer's quarterly eval than ever before. Mind you, no one mentions the dreaded Q word, because 'quotas don't exist and have never existed, and even if they did they would have been bad, evil quotas, so even though we're telling you your job will be made less fulfilling, if not outright more miserable, if you don't write enough tickets, it totally doesn't amount to a de facto quota. Trust us. We wouldn't do that.' And so, in small town America, the quota that isn't a quota continues under some other name, like "satisfactory traffic enforcement," at the expense of mostly out-of-town motorists, except for the part where the residents' homes, cars, and outbuildings are routinely burglarized because patrol was up on the main drag writing inspection sticker tickets, and all's well that ends with the council having more money to play with, without having to explain it at the polls.
You sir, have totally nailed it!
Good explanation
Yup. There's a thousand little towns like this all over the US. Sleepy little towns with Boss Hogg police forces that are out to fleece everyone who lives or drives near the place.
"spends". LOL. "steals" more like it.
It seems that some small towns have WAY more police on the pay roll than other nearby towns. The locals figure it out but tourists and travelers pay the price.
Back 25-30 years ago, there was a notorious cop from the small town of Island Pond VT. His name is Teddy Miller. He was famous for the # of tickets he issued, and was known to pull people over (and ticket them) for being 'clocked' 1 or 2 mph over the posted (25mph I think) speed limit. You can look him up.
Despicable. Reminds me of the 1991 Dan Aykroyd movie Nothing But Trouble.
Props for the VinWiki sticker. Great channel.
This is a perfect argument for why fines and fees need to go to the state and not let the local municipality keep the. That would tend to stop this kind of nonsense. BTW someone ought to put up a billboard at the last exit before this RICO town and direct folks to a detour around the town.
That's actually a fantastic idea.
I bet billboards down there are cheap too
No, fines need to be donated to crime related charities.
@@evilmike74 crime related charities? Don't know if I want my hard earned cash going to big don and his goons 👍
If you think that the towns wouldn't make some agreement with the state about the distribution of those excess funds that's a fantasy.
A couple of decades ago, there was a small town in Missouri, with no interstate near by, that was doing pretty much the same thing with speeding tickets. (the town was in a depression, the speed limit was 55 except at the town where it was 35, or less) They would stop people for one MPH over. And the town was making big bucks from the tickets. Untill they stopped a state representative. He went back to the capitol and had passed a law limiting the persentage of revenue a town could make on traffic tickets. The town reduced their police and only had one police car when all was said and done.
Did it happen to be Macks creek? They were known to be super bad years ago along Highway 54. They have no police force at all nowadays, but have heard all the stories from back in the day since i live about 20 miles away.
There were similar cases last decade in Ohio and Florida. In the end, the legislatures of both states dissolved the towns and turned them into unincorporated area of the county. No city, no police force.
@@KalebKronic Yep, that was Mack's Creek. They were so bad the legislature passed a state-wide law prohibiting towns and cities from using more than a certain percentage of their revenue from fines for operating expensed. I think the limit they set was 45% (still pretty high); Mack's Creek was getting close to 90% of theirs from fines. And, to no one's surprise, an audit of their finances found some significant irregularities in their books. It was so bad the residents voted to disincorporate and they are no more.
Yes, Mack's Creek. They disincorporated over it, so they're no more thank goodness.
That’s why we have a 3mph variance in WI by law.
Texas addressed this problem decades ago with a law to prevent local jurisdictions from having more than a low and reasonable amount of traffic fines as a percent of other sources of revenue.
Sounds like the feds need to go after the department with RICO charges
That's exactly what I was thinking.
There's another way too. I believe it was in the '60s. A shitsburg in Georgia, located near the Florida border, had a scheme to make money the old fashioned way - they stole it from everyone passing through with out-of-states license plates, among other things. Things got so bad the Governor (Lester Maddox)? got involved and the bottom line was the town's municipal license was terminated. Poof, no government, no cops, no tickets, no more bullshit.
Using the Federal Government is like trying to take a hungry bear for a walk without a leash. Best you can do is point it the right way and hope
No need for the feds. Sounds like the sheriff knows there is a problem. He should be able to take care of it.
Time to open season on the mayor, chief & PD. CRIMINALS WITH BADGES deserve whatever happens to them.